


Mama!

by XinaV



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: AU, Children San and Wooyoung, Does tagging ever get easier?, Gen, I'm whipped for Mama Seonghwa, Kid San, Kid Wooyoung, Kinda, Mama Seonghwa, One big (tired lowkey) happy family, They were turned into kids, This is type cute, anywho, are adorable, i don't know what to tag, no, they love their mama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:35:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27517735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XinaV/pseuds/XinaV
Summary: Fact: San and Wooyoung rarely fight.Also fact: When they do fight, it’s pretty serious.San and Wooyoung's feud has been going on a bit too long for anyone's liking and, quite frankly, it's becoming extremely childish. The surrounding tension is driving everyone insane and causing more issues than they'd like to handle. But just when they all thought this argument couldn't make things any worse, life proves them wrong.A terribly timed fight between the two with an unstable artifact in hand causes San and Wooyoung to be turned into literal children who believe that Seonghwa is their mama. Now Seonghwa is a mother of two and the guys are stuck trying to fix this mistake while keeping both children entertained and out of trouble.Yay.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 41





	Mama!

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Thank you for reading this story! I am a sucker for Seonghwa but more so with him being the parent that he is. I'm also in love with how San and Wooyoung—though constantly teasing him—love their eldest so much and are the first to go give him affection. Put those things together and this story was created. I hope you enjoy the softness 😁
> 
>  **Important side note:** Though it's not extremely key to the story, the guys are a team that, in simple terms, go to handle the situation if an artifact (mystical power and all that stuff) ever becomes unstable so as to prevent a tragedy from happening (like it blowing up and some crazy power is unleashed on to the world). It's an unknown job but they keep people safe. Other than that, they're completely normal.

Fact: San and Wooyoung rarely fight.

Also fact: When they _do_ fight, it’s pretty serious.

San and Wooyoung are the bestest of friends and you can’t say otherwise. Though they haven’t been the longest pair of friends or anything like that, they still are as thick as thieves—and as troublesome as thieves sometimes too. If one is going to do something then you better believe that the other is most likely joining in as well. No stupid, risky, and or illegal activity done alone as they say. When one of them has a problem, the other is one of the first to go and help. They always have each other’s back through thick and thin.

But like all best friends, they sometimes get into arguments.

It’s not often that they get into serious arguments. They never call the small disagreements “arguments” because those are usually solved in less than five minutes—no real anger or hurt feelings involved. But on the rare occasions that they do get into an argument, all hell breaks loose. Without a doubt, it’s lasting more than a day, and feelings will be hurt. Wooyoung is one for speaking his mind and San is no saint when upset so they both end up saying things that definitely should not be said to each other. They usually end up not talking to each other for a bit after exchanging some pretty harsh words, maybe even avoiding each other for a little. Of course though, after a while—maybe with a bit of pushing from the others depending on how bad the argument was—they meet and talk things out and the rest is history. They’re back to being best friends and it’s like the argument never happened. It’s great that they can get back to normal without holding any grudges but truth be told, those days that they aren’t good are not fun in the slightest.

Right now is one of those times.

Currently, San and Wooyoung are in a **serious** argument—probably the worst they’ve had in a long while. They absolutely refuse to be in the same room as each other and they go between straight out ignoring each other or going at each other’s throat. If one of them so much as breathes wrong, the other is complaining about it, leading to more arguing. And this has been going on for _days_.

Neither of the two have even taken the slightest step toward reconciling. Both refuse to apologize—saying that the other should do so first—so peace has not been an option. They’ve both been engaging in behavior that only escalates the problem—or in simple and truthful terms, they’ve been acting like children. San will purposely take an hour in the bathroom when he knows Wooyoung needs to use it, even though he really doesn’t need a shower. Wooyoung will purposely throw away San’s leftovers, claiming to have been cleaning out the fridge but leaving everyone else’s things untouched. And this goes back and forth, both doing extremely petty things to irritate the other and only worsening their problem.

With the two of them fighting like this and for so long, the house is filled with nothing but tension. There’s only so much space in their house so there is no way to avoid the animosity that is currently in the space. They wake up and already feel the tension. And dinnertime? Forget it. It’s either tense silence due to the two ignoring each other or it’s filled with sly, petty comments indirectly aimed at the other—no in between. They have enough manners to not argue full out at the table—only once before they’ve done that and Hongjoong promptly shut that down sternly—but that doesn’t stop them from engaging in other behavior. It’s easier to breathe underwater than it is through this tension.

And quite frankly, the rest of them are getting really tired of this argument.

Don’t get them wrong, they’ve all had their fair share of bad arguments with each other—throwback to the one time Seonghwa and Hongjoong didn’t talk to each other for a week—but they, for the most part, do not get to this level that Wooyoung and San are currently on. Even Yeosang who has known Wooyoung the longest out of all of them has never seen the younger get _this_ petty during an argument. Hell, they don’t even know what the two are arguing about this time. They were fine one day and the next, they’re ready to tear out each other’s throats. At this point in time, they don’t think the original problem is even the main focus anymore—not with all the nonsense they’ve been saying and doing to each other during this. This is just getting out of hand. They’ve all tried to convince the two to talk it out but neither wants to do so. Wooyoung and San are just absolutely upset with each other and this argument seems to have no ending in sight.

It’s at the point that if there wasn’t a good chance that they’d try to harm each other, the others would lock the two in a room and force each other to talk it out. They just really want this argument to be over with. They can’t believe they’re saying this but they rather deal with the pranks and screeching than this. Just please let the two make up because they’re all going insane right about now.

ESPECIALLY right now.

In what has to be the absolute worst timing ever, they had to go on a job—an unstable relic popping up on their radar. Once an item pops up on their radar, there is no putting it off for personal reasons—not if they want to make sure everything stays safe. Unstable artifacts can go off at any moment and it’s their job to make sure that it doesn’t. Considering that they are dealing with pretty dangerous things, teamwork is extremely crucial to the success of a mission. Being down a man—God forbid being down TWO men—raises the risk by a lot so if everyone is perfectly healthy to go then a full team of eight is going.

But with San and Wooyoung currently going at it, teamwork is the last thing that is going on. If they could have left the two home, trust that they would have because this is terrible. Not even ten minutes into the ride going to the artifact did the two get into an argument. It got so bad that it was Yunho—kind, patient, sweet, happy Yunho—who told them to shut the hell up and stay quiet for the rest of the ride. Needless to say, no one spoke after that, all agreeing that the silence was much needed. When they got to the location, the duo at odds went back to ignoring each other, not even sparing the other a glance. The rest of the group took it and decided to get on with it before someone ends up in the hospital.

Better yet, before they send one of them to the hospital because they are _this_ close to snapping.

Hongjoong pinches the bridge of his nose to keep himself from saying something when he sees the two youngers taking it a bit too far to avoid each other. This is out of control. But they’re here now. They contain the item and then they can go home and let the two do this mess while the rest of them go out to get away or something. It’s almost over.

He looks at the high rock pedestal in the center room—on it being the very artifact they came for. It’s time to get to work.

He sighs as he realizes that the best person to get this one is none other than San—him being extremely agile. Whoever or whatever lies up there in the sky, please give him the patience for this.

“San, we’re going to need you to climb up and get the item. You think you can do that for us?” He says to the younger.

San turns to him, eyes coming to focus as if he finally checked into the job they're doing. He nods in response.

“Sure. I’ll get it down easily,” he says.

He walks over to the pillar of the pedestal and tests out the grip he can get on it. He can make the climb pretty easily.

“Don’t drop it this time,” Wooyoung says, a mocking tone peeking through his words.

San turns around at that with a glare.

“At least I’ve never broken a bone on a simple retrieval,” he shoots back, referencing the time Wooyoung broke his leg getting an item.

Seeing Wooyoung getting ready to send back another comment, Seonghwa quickly steps forward, blocking their view of each other.

“Not now you two. Wooyoung, that was uncalled for and San, his injury is not something you make fun of. Now get climbing,” he says scoldingly.

Wooyoung turns away and crosses his arms but does not say anything in reply. San turns back to the job he is supposed to do, deciding to go back to ignoring the other.

He easily pulls himself up into a climb and begins to head up.

No one says anything as they watch San fluidly climb up to the relic. He pulls himself up without a hitch, making good time up to his goal. He’s going a bit faster than usual—making them worried for his safety—but it’s better than nothing.

In record time, he reaches the top.

After pulling down his glove securely with his teeth, he begins to reach out for the artifact.

“Show off,” Wooyoung scoffs under his breath, rolling his eyes—not meaning for it to be heard by anyone but himself.

But it is heard.

The artifact slips from San’s fingers and almost drops to the floor. They all watch with bated breaths when San quickly fumbles, reaching out quickly to catch it. He nearly loses his balance but he stables himself and gets a firm hold on the artifact. The six let out a breath in relief that both he and the item is safe.

Quicker than he went up, San goes down—extremely dangerous since he really only has one hand free to have a proper grip, the item in his fist clenched tightly. He lands on his feet lightly and turns around with a glare deadlier than before.

In only three strides, he is in Wooyoung’s personal space.

“You did that on purpose. What, you wanted me to fall because I brought up your clumsiness,” San says.

Wooyoung rolls his eyes.

“You aren’t that important. You caught yourself anyway, didn’t you? So back the hell up and leave it alone,” he says.

San growls and before any of them realizes it, he harshly shoves Wooyoung back.

“Bastard! You know what could have happened if I fell from that height?” He says.

Wooyoung looks back with his own glare setting in and it’s clear this is about to go south really quickly.

Seonghwa moves forward again to stop this nonsense but this time, he is seconds too late.

Wooyoung quickly rushes and shoves San back with a lot more force than San used.

“Don’t touch me,” he snarls.

San looks up with a fearsome glint that says he’s ready to fight which is something that CANNOT happen here.

“Stop it, both of you! Not here, not now!” Seonghwa snaps sharply, grabbing Wooyoung by the arm.

But the younger fights his way out of the eldest’ grasp and storms at San again, ready to give him a piece of his mind. 

San has other plans though.

He moves to shove Wooyoung back harder. Wooyoung quickly grabs his arms and the two are locked in a match of force, pushing back and forth.

“Choi San, are you insane?! You have an unstable artifact in your hand! Both of you stop this now or I swear to God I’ll—”

Seonghwa doesn’t even get the chance to finish his frustrated-panicked-angry threat because the two fighting boys trip over each other’s feet, both of them going down—San falling backward and bringing Wooyoung down with him.

They fall to the ground and a terrible cracking sound echoes throughout the room.

Beneath San’s hand lies a now broken relic.

Before anyone can react, an extremely bright light fills the room blinding them all. It completely floods the room, leaving them incapable to do anything.

They don’t know how long it takes for the light to die down.

It feels like forever but when it finally does, everything goes still. 

The six slowly open their eyes, cautiously in case something went wrong. When their vision is clear, they look up at each other, making sure everything is okay. No one looks injured and the room isn’t collapsing in on them so that’s good. They turn back to the two who just did something incredibly reckless, ready to let them have it.

The reprimand dies in their throats.

Their mouths fall open as they see in front of them two small children—both unconscious—where Wooyoung and San once were. Both are in small versions of the clothes the two were wearing and frightening similarities can immediately be seen. Under the tiny hand of the dark-haired child lies the pieces of the broken relic.

Hongjoong lets out a long string of swears.

“Are they KIDS?!” Mingi exclaims, pointing to the boys.

Young kids at that. They can’t be a day over six.

“This is so screwed up,” Jongho whispers, absolutely blown out of his mind at the sight in front of them.

Both Hongjoong and Seonghwa look as if they are on the verge of snapping—Hongjoong taking deep breaths and Seonghwa pulling at his hair.

“We’ve done this for two damn years now and they still were stupid enough to do something this reckless. I swear I’m…” Hongjoong fades away, choosing to keep his choice words to himself.

And he has some pretty choice words in his head right now.

Seonghwa covers his face with hands and lets out a scream, startling the others. It’s not often that he’s that fed up.

He moves his hands and takes a deep breath. Grounding himself, he turns to the others.

“Someone, I don’t care who, just someone grab those two and let’s go home. Staying here isn’t going to do us any good. Grab the pieces while you’re at it—we’ll most likely need it if we want to fix this mess,” he says.

He walks away at that, shaking his head in exasperation and disappointment. When all of this is fixed, those two are going to have the lecture of their lives.

With that, they all move. Yunho and Mingi take the two kids while Yeosang grabs the broken relic. Jongho walks with Hongjoong, helping him to keep his cool.

It’s time to go home.

~~~

They stare at the two children on the couch. 

Both are still unconscious but it looks like they are just peacefully sleeping. Just by their sleeping positions alone, they can confirm that they are indeed San and Wooyoung.

They really got themselves into something this time.

“So what do we do?” Yunho asks, breaking the silence.

The five are sitting in the living room, watching the kids in silence, still trying to wrap their minds around everything. Seonghwa went to take a **_long_ ** shower—longer than he usually does—needing it to calm down his nerves. So as he’s doing that, the others are on watch duty, waiting for the boys to wake up. They can barely process the sight in front of them.

“I don’t even know. We have to find out what exactly that relic was then how to reverse its power but I know it will not be that simple. Especially not with only six of us now. We also don’t know what these two will be like. Are they themselves trapped in children's bodies or are they actually kids? There’s just so much that I don’t even know where to begin,” Hongjoong says.

This has never happened before. They have never been this reckless with an item so it makes sense that he doesn’t know exactly what to do with this situation. He just can’t believe that this actually happened. Out of all of the times for them to want to fight, it had to be during a job. They couldn’t have just waited till they got home to get rough? If they weren’t children right now, he would strangle them.

“I think we’re going to get an answer to one of those things now,” Yeosang says, pointing to the couch.

They all turn to look and see the two boys on the couch beginning to stir. Slowly, the two sit up, rubbing their eyes as they wake up.

Finally, their eyes open.

They all stare at the two children, waiting to see what happens. Should they say something?

The two boys seem to come to their senses—fully awake now—and begin to look around at their surroundings. Nothing around them seems familiar, causing their breathing to pick up.

They turn to the five adults in front of them and their lips begin to wobble.

“Oh—oh no,” Mingi says, seeing the tears pool in their eyes.

Yunho moves forward quickly to comfort them before the crying begins.

“Hey now, it’s okay—you don’t have to cry, you’re okay,” he says gently.

But his words do nothing for them—the two only seeing an unfamiliar giant in front of them, even while he’s squatting down.

Little Wooyoung starts to cry.

Yeosang rushes forward, moving to try his hand at comforting the younger.

“No, no, it’s okay Wooyoung, you’re fine,” he says, reaching out to soothe him.

But the second Yeosang gets too close to him, Wooyoung lets out a piercing wail—not wanting to be touched by the stranger.

Seeing Wooyoung next to him in complete distress and all of the unfamiliar faces in front of him just staring at them, little San’s dam breaks and a flood of tears come rushing down. He begins to cry just as hard as Wooyoung.

“Ah hyung, what do we do?” Jongho asks, slightly panicked.

Hongjoong, panicking himself, looks at the children unsurely. He doesn’t know how to soothe them if they seem to cry harder once they get closer.

Before he can even suggest something, Seonghwa comes rushing out into the living room—hair dripping and nothing but a towel around his waist.

“What’s going on?” He asks, wide-eyed, having heard the crying from the bathroom.

The two children turn at his voice and, at the sight of him, they quickly jump off of the couch and run to him.

They grab on to his legs, crying their little hearts out as they hide behind him for safety.

“MAMA!” They wail.

Everyone freezes at that.

Did they just call him Mama?

Completely stupefied but acting on instinct, he bends down carefully—minding the towel around his waist—and moves the children in front of him. Cautiously, he pets their heads in an attempt to soothe them.

They startle him as they rush into his arms, crying into his bare chest.

“We-we w-woke up a-a-and strangers a-and they make they make Woo cry and they s-stare at us and and and…” San’s voice dies away as he continues to cry.

Seonghwa is totally confused but before he can grasp anything, he needs to stop these two tears.

He rubs their backs comfortingly.

“It’s okay, I’m here. You’re safe, baby,” he says consolingly.

The two cling to him, taking in his comfort. Their tears begin to slow down as he continues to say calming words to them. He places soft kisses on their hair, doing wonders for them. Soon, they are only hiccuping, tears drying on their face.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong now?” He asks gently.

They both pull back slightly, rubbing the remaining tears from their eyes. Wooyoung points to the guys behind them accusingly.

“We woke up and didn’t know where we were and they were just staring at us and we couldn’t find you, eomma,” he says.

And there they go again calling him their mother.

“Eomma? Am I your eomma?” Seonghwa asks, surprised.

But his tone does not reach them. Instead, the two children begin to giggle, tears forgotten at the comment.

“You knew that already. You’re so silly, eomma,” San laughs.

Seonghwa looks to the other guys, all of them looking as confused as he feels. Just what is going on?

He looks back to the children and decides to test the waters a bit.

“Yes, yes, I knew that. Do you know who they are?” He asks, gesturing back to the others.

The two look back with distrustful looks and move closer to the safety of their mama.

“Stranger danger,” they say in unison. 

So they don’t remember the others at all but they think he’s their mother. What kind of messed up situation is this exactly?

“They’re not strangers. They’re your big brothers,” Seonghwa says, trying to ease their worries.

The two turn around with wide eyes as if he just said the worst lie ever.

“Uh-uh! Mama only has two kids—Sannie and Youngie!” Wooyoung exclaims. He does not share his mama with anyone but San.

Seonghwa gives a pained smile. He’s a twenty-three-year-old single male—he has no kids. But it seems like the two in front of him genuinely believe him to be their mother—not father, MOTHER—so he’ll have to go with it for sanity’s sake. He doesn’t know if this is because of the relic or kids' inability to see gender sometimes but at this point, he doesn’t want to think about it.

“Yes dear, but I mean they are like your big brothers. They are your hyungs and they are very good friends to...eomma. They are very nice,” he says, feeling extremely weird calling himself that.

They joke around that he’s the mother of the group but to actually have two children who honestly believe that he is their parent, that is just something crazy.

The two still look at the guys uncertainly though, not knowing how much they believe that they are nice. Seonghwa sighs seeing their looks.

“How about this: you let eomma get dressed and then we’ll all meet them? Are you okay with that?” He suggests.

They quickly grab on to his arms, afraid he’ll leave them.

“We want to go with you!” They say.

Not wanting them to start crying again, he decides to go with it. He just needs to put some clothes on before he can deal with any of this.

“Alright, come on,” he says.

He stands up, fixing his towel before taking their little hands. He walks to his room with the two boys so he can go put on clothes.

The others stare in confusion.

“With every moment that passes, I become more and more confused,” Yunho says.

“You and me both,” Hongjoong says.

They decide to just sit down and wait for Seonghwa to return so they can talk this all out because, at this point, they can’t do anything else.

After about ten minutes or so, Seonghwa comes back into the living room, carrying both of the kids in his arms. He sits down on the couch in between Hongjoong and Yeosang, causing San and Wooyoung to lean in closer to Seonghwa to put distance between them and the strangers.

Seeing them hiding in his chest, Seonghwa gently prods them.

“Can you come out so everyone can meet you, please? I promise it’s alright,” he says.

Hesitantly, they move a bit out of his chest, showing their faces to all of them.

“Thank you—now, why don’t you tell them your names and ages,” he says.

San decides to be the brave one of the two and speak up for them both.

“My name is San and this is Wooyoung. We’re five,” he says as Wooyoung holds up five fingers for them both.

Well now they know how many years back the two were sent. From twenty-two to five, that’s quite the change. That relic really did some damage.

The others wave in greeting before looking to Seonghwa to see what they should do next. Clearly the two only feel comfortable with him so they just have to follow after his lead.

“Great job! Are you ready to meet your hyungs now?” Seonghwa says to them.

They look at the guys with slight distrust but they look but up to their mama to see his reassuring look so they nod, trusting that it’ll be okay.

Seonghwa gestures to the guys to go ahead and introduce themselves.

Yunho, sitting on the floor, decides to go first.

“My name is Yunho, it’s nice to meet you both,” he says.

Wooyoung and San remember him as the tall one who came to them first. Sitting in front of them though while they’re on their mama’s lap, he doesn’t seem _that_ scary.

Yeosang decides to go next since he tried earlier to talk to them and feels slightly responsible for making them cry. “My name is Yeosang,” he says.

“You knew my name already!” Wooyoung says, pointing at him.

Seonghwa gently puts his hand down, reminding him that pointing isn’t nice. He apologizes before turning back to Yeosang with suspicion.

“That’s because your eomma talks about you a lot,” Yeosang says on the fly so as not to scare the younger.

Wooyoung lights up and looks at Seonghwa with stars for eyes. San, on the other hand, quickly turns to Yeosang.

“Does eomma talk about me too?” He asks, not wanting to be left out.

“Oh of course! Your eomma talks about you a lot too. You two are all...he...talks about,” Yeosang responds, unsure of whether referring to Seonghwa as he would throw off the children.

But the two don’t even seem to mind it at all—their thoughts more on the facts that they're constantly talked about.

“We like that hyung!” They say to Seonghwa, referring to Yeosang.

Seonghwa chuckles, knowing it’s only because he told them what they wanted to hear. Ah, kids are so easily won over.

“That’s great. You still have three more to meet though,” he says.

The two turn back to the others so as to meet the remaining three but they’re pretty sure they won’t like them as much as they like Yeosang hyung.

Mingi goes next, also on the floor so as not to appear so big to the kids.

“My name is Mingi, nice to meet you two,” he says.

San leans over to Wooyoung and ‘whispers’, “They’re taaaaaaaall,” referring to both Yunho and Mingi. It is not as quiet as the little ones would like to believe though, causing the others to hold back laughs at the comment. 

“Taller than eomma?” Wooyoung ‘whispers’ back in reply.

Seonghwa decides to cut in and leaning down to them he ‘whispers’ to them both in confirmation, “Taller than eomma.”

They look up in surprise at that. How could anyone be taller than their eomma?

They turn back to the two on the floor and make a mental note to ask their mama later if they really are giants.

Hongjoong decides to continue on the introductions, feeling a little less winded up after that funny display.

“My name is Hongjoong,” he says, holding out his hand to them.

They look at Seonghwa to see if it’s safe. When they receive a nod in return, they both slowly reach out and give him a high five.

Finally, it’s Jongho’s turn.

“My name is Jongho,” he says with a simple wave though he is still a bit weirded out. He’s not exactly used to being older than anyone here after all.

They wave back in reply. Seeing that they’ve met all of the people in the room, they turn back to their mama.

“Can we leave now?” Wooyoung asks.

The others snort, each holding back their laughs. Wooyoung doesn’t change no matter what age he is it seems.

Seonghwa holds back a chuckle as he pats down Wooyoung’s hair.

“Where are we going? We’re home already,” he says, curious to see what the little one will say.

San is the one that pops up though in reply.

“Let’s eat!” He says.

Wooyoung cheers along in agreement. It’s time for food!

Seonghwa thinks about what he was going to cook—he’ll definitely have to cut it up for them and give them small portions. He hopes they will be willing to handle a utensil on their own because he cannot feed two kids at once. If anything, one of the others will have to help him. Probably Yeosang since the two apparently like him.

“Okay then. Can you both be good boys and stay here with your hyungs while I go to cook dinner? I’ll just be right over there so I can hear you if you need me,” he says.

The two look at the others, not really wanting to be left alone without their mama but Mama has to cook if they want to eat.

“Okay, we stay here,” they agree.

Seonghwa gives them a bright smile and a kiss on their cheek in reply. The two seem to really love it, giggling happily at that.

He turns to the others and gestures for someone to take the boys off of his lap so he can get up and go to the kitchen. To his fortune though, the boys get up on their own and go over to Yeosang—their current favorite hyung.

Seonghwa shakes his head with a laugh before going to the kitchen.

This is really about to be something else.

* * *

“Noooooooo!”

The two children cling to Seonghwa’s legs, refusing to let go. Not even Yeosang can convince them to let go of him.

“Sweethearts, eomma has to go. You’ll have a great day with your hyungs,” Seonghwa says gently, trying to convince them to let him go.

The issue? Well, in short, Wooyoung and San don’t want to leave Seonghwa’s side. The full story goes like this.

After having dinner last night, Seonghwa giving the boys a bath, and putting the two to bed—his bed because they REFUSED to sleep in a different room than him—they all figured that it was time to talk about what should be done. It was decided that the first step is to find out some information. Their best source for information on this type of stuff is an older—about late thirties (or so they are told to believe and are going with it for their sake)—woman who seems to know any and everything about relics. If anyone can give them a starting place, it’s her. But she’s openly biased toward Seonghwa, liking him much more than she likes the rest of them—something about he reminds her of someone or something—so if they want good information for a fair price, Seonghwa is mandated to go unless he absolutely cannot. It was known that Seonghwa would go but they didn’t factor in the two children’s attachment to him.

The second the boys were told that they would be spending some time _without_ their eomma, they flipped and clung to his legs, refusing to let go—which is why they are here now.

“We want to go with you,” they say, looking up to him with big eyes.

He slowly bends down—and they let go of him but only because he’s coming to their level—and meets their eyes with a gentle look.

“I know but you can’t go with me today because only adults can be there. So I need you both to be good for me and stay with your hyungs, okay? You’re going to go shopping today, isn’t that fun?” He tries to reason with them.

“It’s only fun with you. We don’t want to stay with our hyungs,” San whines.

Seonghwa puts a hand on their cheeks, holding them softly.

“It’ll be fun with them too. Can you please give it a try for eomma?” He says.

The boys do not look happy about this but Seonghwa switches it on them, giving them his own set of puppy eyes to try and convince them. Fortunately for him, five year old San and Wooyoung fall for the look much easier than their older selves.

“Alright,” they say, accepting the unchangeable.

Seonghwa smiles and peppers their faces with kisses, causing them to brighten up and laugh at the affection. It’s as if he kissed all of their worries away.

He finally pulls back and pats down both of their hair.

“Thank you boys. You’re so good to eomma,” he says.

He stands up and is internally very relieved when they don’t latch on to his legs again. He turns to Hongjoong and gestures for him to start heading to the door before the boys decide to change their minds about cooperating.

“Be good for your hyungs now, okay?” He says to them.

“We promise!” They say.

Seonghwa turns to the others at the agreement and gives them a look.

“Please do not do anything that will raise my blood pressure and more importantly, **do not** lose sight of these boys,” he says.

The last thing they need is San and Wooyoung walking off somewhere while they’re kids—they have enough to deal with.

“You sure you aren’t their mother?” Yeosang mumbles.

He receives a look from the elder in response but fortunately Yunho speaks before Seonghwa can reply to the comment.

“We’ll be good hyung, don’t worry,” Yunho says, offering a smile as comfort.

Seonghwa doesn’t know how much he believes that but he doesn’t have time to worry about that any longer. Him and Hongjoong have to get going if they want to reach the woman at a reasonable time and they already spent enough time by trying to get San and Wooyoung off of him. It’s time for them to go.

“Alright then. Bye boys, have fun with your hyungs today,” Seonghwa says to the two children.

“Buh-bye eomma. Love you!” They say, waving to him.

Though this is one hell of a situation, Seonghwa can’t stop his heart from melting at the love these boys give him. They are so cute and he’s a sucker for kids—not to mention that it’s not often that Wooyoung and San aren’t ganging up on him—so he just can’t help the smile that comes to his face.

Side note though: they speak like twins and it’s pretty surprising how they can constantly say the same thing at the same time but that’s a whole different story honestly.

“Love you too,” he coos. He looks up to the guys and gives them a smile that says best of luck. “Have a good day—call us if you need us.”

“We will. Good luck on getting information,” Jongho says.

Hongjoong and Seonghwa nod and with one last wave, they finally leave.

San and Wooyoung watch the door close, already missing their eomma but they agreed to be good. This is going to be so long.

“Come on boys, let’s get ready to go shopping. We’re going to buy you some new clothes,” Yunho says to them cheerfully, trying to get them excited.

Since they don’t know how long these two will be children and they can’t keep them in the same clothes the entire time, it was decided to go get them some new clothes and probably a few other things so they’ll be equipped to handle two five year olds. It should also keep them distracted while Seonghwa is gone so they aren’t too sad.

It doesn’t get the two excited like he was hoping but they do turn to him with curious eyes.

“Can we get piggy back rides there?” San asks.

Yunho and Mingi look at each other, well knowing that they will be the ones carrying the children. But if it can make them even slightly more cooperative then hey, they do what they have to.

Yunho bends down to their level and says, “Let’s make a deal. If you guys be extra good for us while you’re getting ready, then you can have piggyback rides there. Does that sound fair?”

The two kids look at each other, silently discussing if it is a fair deal with their eyes. They then turn to Yunho again, decision seemingly made.

“Deal!” Wooyoung says, cutely sticking out his hand.

Yunho chuckles at that but shakes his tiny hand nonetheless.

With that, the two boys go willingly with the others to go get ready for the day. Thankfully, they’ve all already had breakfast so that’s one less thing to worry about.

Thanks to the boys cooperating with them, getting ready doesn’t take too long. Before they know it, they’re all good to go and out of the door.

As promised, Yunho and Mingi put the two boys on their shoulders as they make their way to the mall—even for the train ride—which made the two light up greatly. They’ve never been up so high before and it’s absolutely incredible for them. They love it.

When they finally reach the mall, the boys are brought down but are carried by Yeosang and Jongho to spare Yunho and Mingi’s arms. They head to the first store they had in mind where they know they’ve seen some pretty nice children's clothes in the kids section before.

Entering the large store, the boys squirm to be put down, wanting to look at all of the clothes like big boys. So they are set down and they hold the hands of their hyungs like they are supposed to. They walk over to the children’s section, being greeted by bright colors and fun prints.

Wooyoung and San’s eyes go wide in excitement at all of the clothes and immediately begin pulling at their hyungs hands to get started.

And just like that it begins.

The two little ones pick out things they like and the elders find it in their size. After a while, the guys get a sense of what the two like and are able to pick things up to show to them. It all goes smoothly—smoother than they expected it to.

You know, until it doesn’t.

“Let’s just ask them,” Yunho says, breaking up the intense discussion the four of them were having over whether the boys would wear overalls—considering how kids can be.

They look down to ask the kids but all come to a screeching halt when they do not see their two five-year-olds.

“San, Wooyoung,” Mingi calls out, scanning to see if he can spot the boys.

But they receive no response and they can’t see Wooyoung’s bright blond or San’s dark hair anywhere.

The four of them look at the vast expanse of the store and their hearts drop.

“Seonghwa is going to kill us.”

~~~

Meanwhile, in another part of the store, Wooyoung and San are looking at pretty jewelry.

When they saw their hyungs talking about who knows what, they decided to go on their own. So holding each other’s hand, they walked off to go look at the other pretty stuff in the store. They ended up coming across the wall where all of the jewelry hangs in the women’s section and it caught their attention completely.

Their eyes land on the many different earrings hanging and a flash of recognition goes through them.

“Mama wears those!” San says to Wooyoung, pointing to the earrings.

“We should get them to give!” Wooyoung exclaims.

A gift for their mama! Oh they love the idea of it already. They can give it when they’re all back home and then they can see their mama light up and give them hugs and kisses and be happy. It’ll be great.

“Which one?” San asks.

They look back at all of the possible choices, wondering which would make the perfect gift. They scan the wall carefully, trying to find the best one. It has to be really pretty so it can be a good gift.

Finally, they both spot the absolute perfect one.

“Sannie, Sannie! That one! Mama would love that one!” Wooyoung says excitedly, pointing at the perfect set of earrings.

It’s sparkly and silver and it has a bunch of different ones in it in multiple sizes. And then the one that hangs looks like a really pretty crystal which would just be so great for their mama. It’s perfect!

They try to stand on their tippy-toes to get it but they don’t even brush past it, the item being much too high for them.

“It’s too high,” Wooyoung whines, stomping his foot in frustration.

They try to think of a way to reach it. They can’t just let it go, they have to get it! It’s too perfect for them not to.

“How about you stand on my back,” San suggests.

“Good idea!” Wooyoung says.

San gets down on the ground and Wooyoung slowly climbs up, trying to keep his balance. He begins to reach up, trying to touch even the bottom of the one they want. He’s almost there, he knows he can reach it. Almooooooost.

His fingers brush against the bottom of it and he tries to knock it toward him so he can grab it.

“Woo, hurry up, my arms hurt,” San complains.

“I almost got it,” Wooyoung says.

He continues to try to knock it toward him, seeing it get the tiniest bit closer to him. He can get it.

His small fingers finally grab hold of it and he grins in success.

“I got it!” He says.

“Great now get down,” San says, struggling to stay up.

Wooyoung pulls it off of the hook and bravely jumps down from San’s back. San stands up and Wooyoung proudly shows him the set that they got down all by themselves.

“Mama’s gonna love this,” San says, eyes gleaming in excitement.

“Let’s go find the hyungs and show them,” Wooyoung says.

San nods and they grab hands once again so as not to lose each other while walking. They just have to go back to the colorful clothes and then they find their hyungs—easy.

The second they step out of the little area they’re in though—the shelves and tables hiding their small height previously—they immediately spot Yunho hyung standing in the middle of the floor, looking around. His eyes land on the two of them and he lets out more words under his breath than one can count. He rushes over to them, scooping them up into his arms.

“Oh my goodness, I found you. You both gave us a heart attack! You can’t walk away like that,” he says.

He pulls back, checking them over to make sure that they’re okay. The two of them look at the older, not really knowing what he’s going on about but hey, at least they didn’t have to go far to find him.

“Look hyung! Look what we got,” Wooyoung says, pushing past whatever the elder is talking about.

He happily shows him the earrings that they worked so hard to reach and both him and San grins proudly.

“It’s for Mama!” San says.

Yunho looks at the earrings in Wooyoung’s hands and then at the bright smiles that the two of them have. He does this a few times before it finally registers that they got this as a gift for Seonghwa.

He lets out a breathy chuckle—half in relief because they’re safe and half because they are just too cute.

“That’s very sweet of you guys. Do you want to give it as a gift?” He says.

They nod enthusiastically.

“Okay, let’s go meet up with the others and then we can pay for everything,” Yunho says.

He takes hold of their hands—determined not to let them out of his sight this time—and heads off to go gather the rest of them.

When they meet up with the other three, relief crosses through all of their eyes at the sight of the two boys.

“They found a gift that they wanted to give hyung,” Yunho says in explanation, pointing down to the set of earrings that are in Wooyoung’s hand.

“Don’t you think Mama would love it?” San says, cutting in.

“We chose the prettiest one!” Wooyoung says, showing off the jewelry.

The two boys are very proud of the one they chose and just know it’ll be a great gift.

While the sentiment is very cute, that doesn’t erase the scare they just had when those two went missing. They thought regular age WooSan caused them issues? Well clearly they started young because god that is terrifying.

“Yes, it’s very pretty. It’ll be a great gift,” Yeosang says, internally trying to bring down his racing heart.

The two kids smile brightly at that. With that confirmation, they’re absolutely sure that their mama will love it.

“Why don’t we go pay for all the stuff now and get out of here? I think we spent enough time here,” Jongho says. After that frantic search they just did, it’s about time they get going.

San tugs on Yunho’s hand, gaining his attention.

“We have to wrap it. It’s not a gift if it’s not wrapped,” he says, Wooyoung nodding along in agreement.

And it has to be good wrapping too or else it won’t be right.

“Okay, how about a gift bag then with nice tissue paper? It will look really pretty,” Yunho suggests.

The boys think about it for a second but when the word “pretty” registers in their minds, they become excited.

“Yeah!” They cheer in agreement. They get to give a pretty pretty gift!

“Great! Then let’s go pay for everything and then we can go to a different store to go get the gift bag and tissue paper,” Yunho replies.

So the six of them go off to checkout, having gotten plenty of clothes for both of them to get them through what hopefully won’t be too long of this child WooSan situation.

They get to the register and the boys make sure that the earrings are the very first thing that is scanned, making it very clear that that is the most important item. It is put in a small separate bag and handed back to the kids—who are very excited to have secured their gift. After that, all the other items are scanned and put into bags. The guys pay and finally, this part of the shopping trip can be called complete.

To make sure that the boys don’t run off again, Yeosang and Jongho lift them up and carry them again as they leave the store. The boys don’t mind in the slightest—everything being okay now that they have their gift.

Their next stop: a paper store to go get the boys their gift bag.

Fortunately, they find one not too far from where they were. They decide not to make the same mistake in letting the boys down when they enter the store. Luckily, the boys do not fight it, too much in awe of all of the pretty and colorful things around them.

They head over to the gift wrapping section to find something that the boys will like. There is a good selection of bags and tissue paper to choose from so the boys are bound to find something that they like.

“Which one do you guys want to get?” Mingi asks them, gesturing to the selection.

The two boys look at the wall with—adorably—serious looks, this being of the utmost importance. They have to choose the perfect bag and tissue paper.

“It has to be really pretty. Sparkly,” Wooyoung says.

Yunho walks over and points to the bags that are sparkly to help the boys out. When his hand lands on a small silver sparkling bag, San’s eyes light up.

“That one!” He says, practically leaning out of Jongho’s arms—Jongho doing his best to keep him from falling.

Wooyoung claps in agreement. He likes it too—it’s just like the gift, it’s just right.

Yunho grabs the bag for them and then moves over to the tissue paper. “Okay, now pick a color to go with it and then you’ll have your perfect gift,” he says.

The boys look at the choices and immediately spot the exact one they want.

“Blue!”

“Pink!”

Hearing that they said different colors, San and Wooyoung turn to each other—surprised that that even happened.

“Blue is prettier for Mama,” San says, pointing to the royal blue paper with light blue sparkles.

“Uh-uh, pink is,” Wooyung argues, pointing to the soft pink paper with deep pink sparkles.

“Blue is!”

“Pink is!”

The two young children give each other angry looks. How could the other dare to believe that any other color would be the better fit? Clearly the other was wrong.

“Pink is stupid!” San exclaims.

“And blue is ugly!” Wooyoung shoots back.

The elders decide this is where they should step in before this escalates into something they do not want. Two five year olds arguing in the middle of a store? No thank you.

“Yah, San, Wooyoung, you shouldn’t use words like that,” Yeosang scolds, gaining the children’s attention.

They stop their argument and turn to Yeosang, hearing his tone.

“But he’s wrong!” They say in defense, pointing to each other accusingly.

Both Yeosang and Jongho bring down their hands though.

“It’s not nice to use words like that. Neither of you are wrong, you just like different things and that’s okay,” Jongho says.

“But—”

“Do you boys want us to call your eomma and tell him that you two are being mean to each other?” Yunho says in a serious tone, pulling out his phone to show them that he means it.

Both boys immediately shake their heads no, not wanting their mama to be called. They promised to be good, they don’t want their eomma to think that they’re being bad boys.

“Then you both should say sorry to each other for saying mean things,” Mingi says to them.

The two look at each other, arms crossed and lips turned downward into a frown. They’re still upset that the other picked a different color but they want to be good boys like they promised to be.

“I’m sorry,” they say at the same time.

Yeosang and Jongho lean them closer to each other so they can hug it out and the two don’t resist it—reaching out and giving the other a hug. It actually does make them feel a bit better and they find themselves slightly less upset.

They pull apart and turn to their hyungs to see what happens now.

Yunho looks at the prices for both the blue and pink tissue paper and decides that it won’t hurt getting both. It’ll make them both happy and it is nice that they want to get a good gift for Seonghwa.

“We’ll get both blue and pink so your eomma can see both colors. Do you like that?” He says to them.

San and Wooyoung straighten up at the suggestion, liking that option. They nod eagerly in response.

So Yunho grabs both colors and with that, they go to pay for everything. With their gift secured and their gift bag and paper chosen, the two boys are very happy.

The rest of the shopping trip goes by much easier. The guys take turns carrying them, only putting them down to walk a few times when they were positively sure that they wouldn’t wander away. Neither child tries to walk away, they don’t ask for anything, no arguments happen, and they are surprisingly pretty easy to shop for—minus the few disgusted looks at some things they thought were absolutely hideous. They do carry a lot of energy with them—getting excited over the littlest things—and squirm a lot in their arms but overall, it goes very smoothly.

By the time they are heading back home, the two young boys are fast asleep—tired out from all of the activity.

The guys drop down on the couch exhausted.

Finally home—boys put in Seonghwa’s bed and all the bags out of the way for now—sitting down has never felt better. Who knew a shopping trip could be so tiring? They really hope those two aren’t children for long.

Speaking of the situation, Mingi’s phone goes off—revealing to be Hongjoong calling.

“Hello,” he answers, putting the phone on speaker.

 _“Wow you sound tired. Are you guys home now?”_ Hongjoong says.

“Yeah, we got back a bit ago,” Mingi responds.

Though they feel a bit more than just tired after all of that.

 _“How are the boys?”_ Seonghwa asks.

Yeosang and Jongho snort in response. Just like a mother.

“Your devil children are asleep in your room. They have so much energy, I’m surprised they even fell asleep,” Yeosang says in reply.

“Please tell us you have some news,” Jongho says, not even wanting to go through the small talk after all they just went through—they have no energy to.

Good news preferably.

 _“We have good news, bad news, and scary news—in that order. We can tell you it now or wait until we get back,”_ Hongjoong says.

They four glance back in the directions of the rooms, knowing that the second those boys wake up is the second they’ll have to be up and at it again—especially since they have to help pack the gift—so they don’t think they’ll have much chance to simply talk until the boys fall asleep for the night.

“Let’s hear it now,” Yunho says.

The sooner the better.

 _“First, some info since we were all confused about this. The boys think hyung is their mother because he was the last to have both physical and verbal contact with them. If you remember, he was scolding them right before the relic broke so when they turned into kids, its power convinced them that he is their mother, despite everything. The rest of us are just strangers to them—well were strangers,”_ Hongjoong explains, Seonghwa’s sigh being clearly heard behind him.

That actually makes some sense. They still don’t get how they got mother of all things but their guess is either because of how Seonghwa was scolding them or because of them constantly joking about his motherly ways and that somehow stayed with the boys. Either way, they have at least one answer.

“We can accept that answer. So what’s the good news?” Yeosang says.

 _“The good news is that this_ **_can_ ** _be undone AND that it does not require us to look for another artifact to do so,”_ Seonghwa says.

Well that’s great! It’s extremely difficult to find artifacts that aren’t unstable because they just can’t pick up on them as easily so the fact that another artifact is not needed is very good for them. It saves them that hassle.

“What’s the bad news?” Jongho asks, knowing that it already sounds too easy for them.

Seonghwa sighs again before replying. _“The bad news is that it does require a complicated mixture that has a lot of ingredients and many of them are either rare or hard to acquire. Not to mention that some can be really expensive. It’s going to be a difficulty making it.”_

And there it is—the trouble of this situation. Oh they knew it wouldn’t be that simple. They can already see the difficulties now.

“And the scary news?” Mingi asks, though he doesn’t know if he really wants to hear it with how things can go.

There’s a silence on the other end of the line and it does not make the four of them feel better at all. This will not be good, they can tell already.

After a few more seconds, Hongjoong finally speaks.

 _“The scary news is that we only have until the next new moon to change them back or else they’ll be stuck as kids for good,”_ he says.

Stuck as kids? That’s not scary—that’s terrifying.

“You mean it’ll be irreversible?” Yunho says in shock.

 _“Yes. They may be able to grow up again or they may just stay stuck as children until they die—even she didn’t really know the exact outcome. All we know is that if we can’t bring them back to their real ages before the next new moon, we’ll permanently have two children on our hands and I’ll be a mother for the rest of my life,”_ Seonghwa says, the dread due to the uncertainty and weightiness of it all being heard clearly in his voice.

Okay, that’s not good. That’s not good at all. They CANNOT let San and Wooyoung stay kids. If the weight of this wasn’t clear before well then it definitely is now—and doubled. This is extremely serious.

“The next new moon is in like two and a half weeks though,” Jongho says, checking his phone in disbelief at how short of a time they have.

 _“Yeah, we know—not a lot of time for us to work with but we have to do it if we want to turn them back. We’re on our way back now though so we’ll talk more soon,”_ Hongjoong responds.

“Alright, see you guys soon,” Yunho says.

They hang up and a sense of tiredness but alertness hits them. It really registers that if anything goes wrong, they could really be stuck with two children for possibly the rest of their lives. That’s terrifying to think of but definitely puts a fire under them. They have to be on their game with this time limit that they have. And definitely no rookie mistakes or actions like the one that got them into this mess to begin with. This is way too serious to be reckless.

“When they’re back to their actual ages, I’m going to fight them for doing this,” Jongho says.

“You and me both,” Yeosang replies.

The next few weeks are going to be hell with all they’re going to have to do ON TOP OF taking care of two little children. When those two are back to normal, they will be feeling hell for all of this.

“You may have to get in line—I’m near certain that their ‘eomma’ is going to kill them first,” Mingi says.

They all give him a “you have a point there” look, well knowing that their two eldest are internally at their wit’s end with this situation. If Seonghwa doesn’t kill them the moment they are back to normal then Hongjoong sure will.

“Well I’ll just sit back and watch then—I’ll take whatever I can get,” Yeosang says.

As long as those two get what’s coming to them. And with how fed up their eldests were with all of the arguing before this even happened, they will definitely get what’s coming to them.

With agreements going around after the statement, they all fall back into the cushions again. It’s time to get some rest before the boys wake up.

The guys get a good hour to themselves before they begin to hear sounds signaling that the boys are waking up.

“Rock-paper-scissors to see who has to go to them,” Yunho says.

The three wordlessly agree, raising their hands. 

At the same time, the four throw out their hands—Jongho and Yunho putting out rock while Yeosang and Mingi put out scissors. Left to the two of them now, Yeosang and Mingi try again. This time Yeosang throws out paper and Mingi throws out rock, making Mingi the unfortunate soul who has to get up.

“The cruelty of it all,” Mingi sighs.

He pushes himself up and drags himself over to Hongjoong and Seonghwa’s room to go get the children. It’s time to go be a good hyung.

When he enters the room, he sees that the two are already sitting up, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes. They look up at the sound of the door.

“Is Mama home yet?” Wooyoung instantly asks, words a bit slurred due to him still shaking the sleep off.

Mingi goes closer to them and immediately, San sticks out his arms toward him, wanting to be picked up. Mingi picks him up and San rests his head on the older’s shoulder.

“No, not yet but he’s on his way home now,” he replies.

San raises his head up a little. “Can we wrap the gift now then?” He asks, mumbling a bit.

Kids really do have a one-track mind, huh?

“Yeah, we can—come on, let’s go,” Mingi says.

Wooyoung climbs off of the bed and grabs Mingi’s hand. With San in his arms and Wooyoung holding his hand, he walks out of the room and brings them to the living room. They both become more awake in the short walk there—the excitement of gift-giving touching them again, eyes brightening up.

They get to the living room and they see that the bags with the gift and the wrapping materials are already out and ready for them to use—the other three well knowing that that would be what the two children would want to do.

“Are you boys ready to wrap your gift?” Yunho says to them.

They nod eagerly in response. It’s time to make their mama’s gift even prettier.

Mingi sets San down on the couch and Jongho helps Wooyoung up onto it as well. Yunho and Yeosang take out the earrings, the gift bag, and the tissue paper and hold it in their laps.

“First, we just have to take off the price tag okay,” Yunho says to them in explanation before they think he’s ruining anything on the package.

He scratches off the price tag as cleanly as he can—the boys watching him carefully. When he’s finished, he hands it to them so they can see.

“Do we get to wrap it now?” Wooyoung asks.

“Yes we do. We’ll wrap it first and then we’ll stuff the bag nicely,” Jongho says.

Yeosang hands him the tissue paper and he takes out a sheet of both blue and pink tissue paper. He places them neatly in his lap and overlaps them slightly. He then asks for the earrings, to which is readily given to him—the boys wanting to see how he wraps it.

He places the earrings in the middle and then begins to fold the papers cleanly. The boys watch in awe as he does so, happy to see a lovely balance of both blue and pink. He folds it so skillfully that by the time it’s done, even the other three are a bit in awe at it.

“There we go,” Jongho says, showing the two boys the gift.

The two boys grab each other’s hands with a squeal, completely over the moon at how it looks. Mama is going to love this—they know it already.

The guys chuckle at their excitement. They are just too cute and innocent. When they’re like this, it’s so hard to be upset at them for their stupid actions. Adult San and Wooyoung deserve beat downs but these cute kids are just precious.

“Now all we have to do is make the bag even prettier and then we’re all done,” Yunho tells them.

Yeosang takes out another two sheets of tissue paper and begins to line the small gift bag with the two colors. Jongho hands him the wrapped gift and he places it in the bag. He adds the final two sheets of paper to cover the gift and then makes sure everything looks nice and balanced—no one color overpowering the other.

When it’s all done, he shows it to the boys.

“Ta-da, your gift is all wrapped and ready to give,” he says.

Wooyoung and San take the bag from him, holding it with so much excitement. It’s perfect! They can’t wait for Mama to get home.

“Thank you hyungs!” They say, overjoyed by this.

The elders smile, happy to see them so excited. This should be pretty nice to see. They’re near certain the Seonghwa will love the gesture and the boys will be even happier when they give it to him.

“Now the hard part: waiting,” Yunho says to the guys, pointing to the children practically buzzing in their spots.

Children are not the best at waiting most times, excited children more so. Excited San and Wooyoung as children? Oh you can forget it.

The boys sit with the gift in their laps—both of them holding on to it—waiting for their mama to come home. They keep looking toward the door, growing more and more restless as they wait. If the gift wasn’t in their laps, they’d be all over the place right about now.

It was the longest thirty minutes of the boys’ lives.

The sound of keys in the lock causes the two to pop up happily. They put the bag on the couch and jump off it, running to the door. 

Seonghwa’s legs are tackled the very moment he walks through the door.

“EOMMA!” They cheer happily.

Seonghwa can’t help the laugh that comes forth, previous worry and anxiety being pushed to the back for this moment. How can he not laugh when they are so excited to see him?

“Hello, babies. How was your day?” He greets.

They look up to him with big grins in response, eyes sparkling with joy.

“Good. We had fun with the hyungs!” San says.

“Did you miss us?” Wooyoung asks.

Seonghwa smiles down at them, enjoying their happy energy. Though this whole situation is a mess, he’ll have to admit, the good energy is liked. Especially considering the unbreakable tension that they had in here just yesterday before all of this happened.

“Oh, more than you know. Why don’t you let me go wash my hands and then you can tell me all about your day, okay?” He says to them.

They nod and let go of him so he can go clean up. They know once his hands are clean they can get hugs and head pats and all that good stuff so they don’t mind letting him go.

Seonghwa and Hongjoong head off to go wash their hands while the two children run back to the couch. They climb up and put the gift behind their backs, sitting at the edge to hide it. They gesture for Yunho and Mingi to move closer so no one can see it from the side. The elders have to give it to them, they’re thinking this surprise thing out.

The two eldest come back into the living room and Seonghwa takes a seat in the love seat while Hongjoong joins Yeosang and Jongho on the ground. From his angle, he can spot something behind the boys’ backs and a small smile touches his face.

“So did you boys enjoy shopping with your hyungs?” Seonghwa asks them, having passed all of the bags in his room when he went to drop off his stuff and seeing that they got a few things.

The two nod, practically vibrating in their seats. Seonghwa raises an eyebrow in curiosity, wondering why they are so jittery.

He gets an answer barely seconds later.

“Close your eyes, Mama,” Wooyoung says, San nodding enthusiastically in agreement.

Seonghwa glances to the four that were with the boys—silently asking if he should be concerned—but he only receives smiles of varying degrees in returns so he figures that it shouldn’t be anything bad.

So he closes his eyes as told.

The two boys jump off of the couch, gift in hand, and scurry over to him. They excitedly place the gift bag in his lap.

“Open your eyes now,” San says.

Seonghwa does so and looks down to see the bag in his lap. He looks to the boys, admittedly a bit surprised.

“Is this for me?” He asks.

The two give him a resolute nod.

“Open it,” they say cheerfully.

Seonghwa looks back down to the bag and decides to do as he was told—though he is caught aback by this. He wasn’t expecting a gift of any kind.

He pulls out something neatly wrapped and he can tell that the two boys definitely enlisted the help of their elders with this. So carefully, he unwraps it, making sure not to tear anything.

His mouth falls open slightly when he is looking at lovely earrings.

“Me and Youngie picked them out all by ourselves. We picked the prettiest one there was because Mama wears pretty stuff,” San says proudly.

“We also picked out the bag and the paper. I chose pink and Sannie chose blue. They’re pretty colors for you,” Wooyoung adds.

Seonghwa feels his heart swell at that. They put in so much work just to get him a gift. Now, he gets emotional when his normal age dongsaengs think of him and get him things but two five-year-olds thinking about him and getting him a gift—that really tugs at his heart.

He places the earrings and bag down and scoops up the two boys into his arms. He hugs them tightly and gives them a bunch of kisses—making them squeal in happiness.

“Ah you boys are so thoughtful! I love them, thank you so much! This is so sweet of you,” he says, squeezing them.

The two look up at him, their grins even bigger than before now that they know their mama loved their gift. They lean towards him and both give a kiss on his cheeks with the absolute cutest ‘muah’ sound.

“I know we have to get them back to normal asap but something tells me that hyung is going to enjoy the affection he receives while they’re still this age,” Mingi says to Yunho in a low voice.

Yunho snickers, thinking the same thing. Seonghwa always did find kids adorable and he has a soft spot for affection so it’s probably safe to say that he won’t be dreading being a mother for however long it’ll be. The situation is positively terrible but the affection and love is nice.

“Mama Seonghwa has definitely entered the building.”

* * *

“Please call us if anything happens.”

The four nod in reply to Hongjoong’s words.

“We will. Don’t worry about us—worry about those two little balls of energy you’re going to have to deal with today,” Yunho says to him, referring to the two children who are still asleep in Seonghwa’s bed at this time of morning.

The sun is barely over the horizon, making it the perfect time for the guys to head out. Today, the four of them will be going to go retrieve some of the ingredients that are needed to fix this mess that they are in. The earlier they go, the better the chance they’ll have at getting some of what they hope to find so hence the early departure. Hongjoong and Seonghwa will be staying back to watch the children because, as Yeosang put it, it’s their turn to “babysit the devils”. 

“With Seonghwa here, I’m sure it’ll be okay. I wish actual age San and Wooyoung were that obedient and good for Seonghwa—save me from giving a lecture every three seconds,” Hongjoong replies with a snort.

Children San and Wooyoung seem to love their eomma so much that they don’t give him the slightest bit of trouble—unless he tries to leave for a moment too long. They don’t want to eat their vegetables? Seonghwa just has to ask them kindly once and they make it a race between them to see who can eat all of them first. They don’t want to go to bed yet? Seonghwa just has to hold up San’s favorite plushie and say he’ll sing Wooyoung a lullaby and the two are off to the room without a moment’s hesitation. They don’t want to stop playtime to go take a bath? Seonghwa just has to walk in the room at this point and they’ll run over to him and ask if it’s bath time. The two boys are just really attached to Seonghwa and behave very well for him. Those two are the definition of “Mama’s boys”.

Which means spending a day with them shouldn’t be too hard because he has Seonghwa with him.

“I will never let either of them live this down. I have videos of them falling for hyung’s puppy eyes and giving him countless kisses. If they ever try to deny a thing, it’s over for them,” Jongho says.

“Forget that, I have a video of them complimenting hyung for three minutes straight. I won’t let Wooyoung _breathe_ after this,” Yeosang says.

Hongjoong, Mingi, and Yunho laugh at that—minding their voices so as not to wake up the children. To be honest, they all have videos and pictures of the two being completely in love with Seonghwa and Seonghwa acting like their actual mother. Though it will really be to tease the WooSan duo, it’s also good for when Seonghwa tries to deny his motherly tendencies to them. Once this is all fixed, the three of them will be teased for a very long time.

“Let’s get them back to their proper age first and then we can tease them. Get going you guys, you don’t want to waste too much time,” Hongjoong says.

They all make sure that they have everything that they’ll need for the day. After reminding them once more to keep in contact, Hongjoong bids them goodbye and good luck—locking the door behind them.

He really hopes that they’re able to get at least some of the things they were hoping to find.

He heads back to his shared room, going to go lay down for a bit longer until it’s time to be up and about. 

When he enters the room, he sees Seonghwa lying down, eyes wide open, as the two boys sleep with their heads on his chest—Wooyoung’s leg across Seonghwa’s body and San clinging to both Seonghwa and his plushie. Seonghwa turns to Hongjoong, minding his movements so as not to disturb the kids.

“Did they leave yet?” He asks.

Fortunately, the two kids are not light sleepers—unlike their “eomma”—so him speaking doesn’t stir them in the slightest.

“Yeah, finally got them out after making sure they had everything—don’t worry,” Hongjoong responds.

Seonghwa was actually the first to wake up this morning. But because of the two boys clinging to him, he woke Hongjoong up and had him go get the others in his stead. That left Hongjoong in charge of making sure everything was good before they left while Seonghwa was making sure the sleeping boys didn't wake up too early. The last thing they want is to have to deal with hyperactive kids at six something in the morning.

“Okay good. I hope they have some success today,” Seonghwa says.

Hongjoong gets down on his own bed, getting comfortable once again.

“Me too. Now come on, try to get some more rest before the boys wake up. We have a day ahead of us ourselves,” he says.

Seonghwa makes a sound of agreement—though he knows that he won’t be falling back to sleep. They’ll have to entertain two five-year-olds for the entire day all on their own—they’ll need as much rest as they can get.

In a matter of five minutes, Hongjoong is already back to sleep—the man able to fall asleep practically anywhere at this point. Seonghwa chuckles to himself at the sight. At least one of them is getting more sleep.

He looks down at the sleeping boys on his chest and a soft smile touches his face. He doesn’t remember the last time they’ve looked this peaceful—considering that their argument was going on for far too long. He hopes that once this situation is fixed—and he thoroughly knocks some sense into them for the stupidity that they did—that argument between them will be left in the past. That amount of tension and negative energy in here wasn’t good for any of them. Whatever was going on between them hopefully was squashed the moment they became kids. If not then they’ll really need to talk things out.

He gently smooths down their hair and lets out a quiet sigh. The things that happen with this group.

The four rest in silence—Seonghwa not falling asleep but keeping his eyes closed peacefully—for a few more hours. It’s around ten A.M. that the boys begin to stir, causing Seonghwa to open his eyes.

San and Wooyoung slowly begin to sit up, rubbing their eyes and immediately look up to their eomma. Seonghwa looks down at them with a smile.

“Good morning boys. Did you have a nice sleep?” He says.

They nod in response, both still refusing to even give him an inch of space.

“Did you sleep, eomma?” San asks.

Seonghwa gently touches his face with two fingers and nods with his smile.

“I did. Are you two ready to start the day?” He says.

“Do we get to spend it with you?” Wooyoung asks.

Seonghwa chuckles at that—these boys really do have a one-track mind sometimes.

“Yup. Today you’re with me and your hyung Hongjoong,” he says, gesturing with his eyes over to Hongjoong who is still sleeping.

The two boys look over to their sleeping hyung and they giggle. He sleeps cutely.

“Can you both GENTLY wake up your hyung for me please?” Seonghwa asks, trying to get them off of him so he can sit up at the very least.

It succeeds in its purpose because they nod and get up—San climbing over Seonghwa’s chest—both of them getting off of the bed. With that, he sits up and watches to see what the boys do.

They walk over to Hongjoong’s bed and climb up onto it.

“Hyung, it’s time to wake up,” Wooyoung says as San shakes his shoulder.

Hongjoong comes to, cracking open an eye and seeing the two young ones in front of him.

“Eomma asked us to wake you up. It’s morning time,” San says.

Hongjoong sits up slowly, watching to make sure that they won’t fall or anything. He stretches and offers them a smile.

“I’m up—thank you for waking me,” he says, ruffling their hair.

They smile and then climb off of his bed. They look to both their hyung and eomma to get up so they can start their day. 

“I’ll handle breakfast while you get them ready?” Seonghwa suggests.

“Fair enough,” Hongjoong agrees.

That way by the time they’re all cleaned up and dressed, breakfast will either be done or near done. Fortunately, they don’t have any plans on going out today so they all can keep on house clothes for the day.

“Come on boys, let’s go start the day,” Hongjoong says to the boys, getting out of his bed.

They grab his hands and off they go, heading to the bathroom.

Seonghwa stands up, stretching out his body, before heading to the kitchen to start making breakfast for the four of them.

The morning routine goes smoothly, even with only two of them there. The boys are surprisingly well behaved for Hongjoong and without two children attached to his legs, Seonghwa is able to get breakfast done pretty quickly. By the time Seonghwa is finished with everything and setting the table, Hongjoong comes over with the two children.

“Are you boys ready for breakfast?” Seonghwa asks as they take their seats, leaving a seat in the middle for him.

They nod eagerly, always ready to eat—no matter what age.

Seonghwa makes both of their bowls and sets it down in front of them. The boys have shown that they can eat on their own—just not very neatly—so him and Hongjoong won’t have to do too much work. Maybe help them here and there to prevent a mess.

Surprisingly, despite everything, it’s one of their more peaceful breakfasts they’ve had. Maybe because it’s only four of them—two if you don’t count the little ones who are in their own world enjoying their food—so it’s quieter than normal but it’s just a peaceful morning so far. It is very much appreciated—a moment of peace around here has been like finding gold for a while now.

When breakfast is all done, Seonghwa goes and cleans up while Hongjoong goes to do his own morning routine—the children attached to Seonghwa's side as he cleans. Then when Hongjoong is finished, he watches the kids so Seonghwa can go do what he needs to do. He sits in the living room with the two, listening to them talk about who knows what at this point.

Finally, Seonghwa joins them again.

“So what would you two like to do today?” Seonghwa asks them.

The boys think about the question. What would they like to do? They get to spend an entire day with their mama—and hyung—so what should they do?

While thinking, they catch a glimpse of Hongjoong hyung’s hand, spotting his one painted nail. They both light up at the same time and look at each other excitedly. It being obvious that they have the same idea, they turn to their mama.

“We want pretty nails like hyung!” San says.

The two elders can’t help but smile at the choice. Well, it looks like they’ll be painting nails today.

“I’ll go grab the nail polish for them to pick from then,” Hongjoong says.

He gets up and heads to their room to grab the different colors that he has. He has a feeling that he already knows which ones they’ll end up choosing but he’ll take the others just in case.

He goes back to the living room to where Seonghwa already has napkins and nail polish remover ready just in case. The boys become even more excited when they see him walking back with the different colors.

“Alright, time to pick your colors,” Hongjoong says to them.

He shows them the colors they can choose from and he and Seonghwa hold back their chuckles as they see the two eagerly look at all of the colors. It’s very clear when they spot the exact color they want.

“Yellow!” Wooyoung cheers.

“Purple!” San chooses.

Hongjoong puts the other colors to the side. Now the hard part: which kid will get their nails painted by Seonghwa.

To their surprise, the boys solve it themselves before they even have to say anything.

“Hand game to see who has Mama paint their nails,” Wooyoung says to San.

The two play the hand game that they’ve watched their hyungs play to decide things a few times—rock-paper-scissors—San throwing out scissors and Wooyoung throwing out paper. They look to the elders.

“Who won?” They asked. They’ve only ever seen what was thrown out but they still don’t exactly understand what wins. They just know that this is how you solve things.

Seonghwa laughs softly.

“Sannie did. Did you two learn this from your hyungs?” He says.

The two nod, Wooyoung crawling over to be closer to Hongjoong who will be painting his nails. He doesn’t mind since his hyung looks like he does a good job.

They tap their elders hands, signaling that they want to start now. So with soft smiles on their faces, Seonghwa and Hongjoong decide to not make the two wait any longer. They open up the nail polish—making sure it’s not dry—and then grab the boys’ small hands.

When the first stripe of color goes on their little nails, they both squeal happily.

“It’s so pretty!” Wooyoung says.

Hongjoong and Seonghwa chuckle at their excitement. They’re so easily entertained and so easily excited.

“It’s very pretty. Now we need both of you to stay still for us so it can be all neat,” Seonghwa says to them.

The two boys nod and visibly straighten up and freeze, doing their best not to move. When another stripe of color goes on, they bite back their happy sounds so as not to mess up the process—it’s very clear though that they are over the moon in excitement.

Thanks to the boys being very cooperative and still, Hongjoong and Seonghwa finish painting their nails easily. They make a show out of blowing their nails for them to dry—San and Wooyoung laughing at their silliness. The elders distract the boys so the time it takes for the paint to dry isn’t realized by the two children by making silly faces and sounds and listening to the two ramble on about who knows what. Hongjoong even makes a joke that Wooyoung has his eomma’s blep habit while talking, causing Seonghwa to give him a playful glare but Wooyoung to be very very happy.

Finally, their nails are completely dry.

“There you go boys, all done,” Seonghwa tells them.

They excitedly look at their newly painted nails and Wooyoung crawls back over so he and San can look at each others’. They love it so much!

“Thank you!” They say.

“You’re very welcome. The colors look really pretty on you both,” Hongjoong says.

The two boys glow at the compliment, loving the fact that their hands look nice like their hyung.

They turn to Seonghwa with big eyes and Seonghwa can already tell that this is about to be something.

“Can we paint your nails mama?” Wooyoung asks.

Seonghwa looks over to Hongjoong for help but only sees the younger holding back an amused laugh. Some help he is.

So instead, he turns back to the boys who are giving him their best puppy eyes. And like the sucker he is, he gives in very easily.

“Sure you can. But we have to be neat so we don’t make a mess on the couch, okay?” He says, though he knows five-year-olds and neat do not go together.

But either way, the boys nod their head yes eagerly—happy that they can paint their mama’s nails.

“Pick the colors you would like then,” Seonghwa tells them.

They turn back to Hongjoong who is holding out the colors for them to pick from. After a bit of looking, the boys make their choices.

“Blue!” Wooyoung says.

“Pink!” San picks.

They giggle at each other’s choices—an inside joke between them clearly since the two elders have no idea what’s funny about them—before grabbing their chosen color. Wooyoung then sits on Seonghwa’s right side while San moves to sit on the left.

For the sake of their furniture, Hongjoong puts something hard and flat on the couch so the boys can put the bottle down while they paint. He’s also kind enough to put a paper towel on Seonghwa’s lap to catch any dripping paint that could dirty his clothes. 

Wooyoung turns to San with the best—most adorable—serious look he can muster.

“We have to be really neat so it can look pretty, okay? Like super duper neat,” he says.

San nods in agreement. “Even neater than that! It has to be the prettiest we can do,” he replies.

Hongjoong chuckles at how seriously the boys are taking this. He turns to Seonghwa at the sight.

“I think they top my perfectionism and your cleanliness when it comes to anything dealing with you,” he says.

Seonghwa smiles and pats down the boys’ hair fondly.

“Well they are my kids,” he jokes.

The boys snap out of their serious conversation at that and look up with bright grins. You got that right—kids to the best eomma around.

“We’re going to give eomma the prettiest nails ever! Just you watch hyung!” Wooyoung says in his constantly loud and excited voice.

Seonghwa laughs at that, heart warm at their excitement.

“Yes dear, you both are going to do very good. Let’s just use our indoor voices, okay?” He says, petting his cheek softly.

Wooyoung nods in agreement instantly, giving his mama a big grin.

“If only regular aged Wooyoung quieted down that easily for you,” Hongjoong says.

“If only,” Seonghwa agrees with a sigh.

He decides to not let the boys wait any longer though and opens the nail polish for them. He hands them back their chosen colors and holds out his hands for them.

“Go ahead boys,” he says.

They both give determined nods and with that, they get started.

Their tiny, shaking hands put the first stripe of colors on their mama’s nails and immediate satisfaction runs through them. They so got this.

The boys paint Seonghwa’s nails with the utmost concentration—Seonghwa trying his best to not laugh and stay still while Hongjoong takes more photos and videos for teasing purposes. Granted, the boys get polish on the sides of his fingers and not everything is even but they are doing their best to make it as neat as possible—even doing what the elders did and wiping the extra nail polish off with their fingers. Of course they end up grabbing Seonghwa’s hands again, putting the excess nail polish on other spots but at least his fingers don’t look messy.

Between stripes, Wooyoung and San consult with each other, asking each other if what they did was okay and if it looked neat enough. The two boys are very serious about this clearly.

Finally, when all of Seonghwa’s nails are painted, the boys excitedly close the bottles and begin blowing on his nails.

“You boys are turning red losing so much air,” Hongjoong laughs, noticing their red cheeks as they blow the hardest they can.

“We have to make sure Mama’s nails are dry,” San replies as if it was completely obvious.

Seonghwa chuckles. “They’ll dry, don't worry. Why don’t you two help your hyung clean up while I wait for the paint to dry, okay?”

Wooyoung gives him a piercing stare—as piercing as he can manage to give his mama—and uses his scolding finger.

“Don’t mess up your nails while we’re cleaning. We want to make sure your nails are still pretty when the hyungs come back and we can show them. We have to show them that all of us have pretty nails,” he says.

Seonghwa nods, doing his best not to laugh at the stern talking-to he’s receiving from a five-year-old. Ah, they really do act like they’re his own kids.

“I promise to make sure my nails stay nice and neat,” he says, giving the little one a kiss on the forehead.

Wooyoung brightens at that, the stern look gone as if it never even existed.

His smile is broken as San practically pushes him to the side, trying to catch his mama’s attention—Wooyoung letting out a “hey” in protest.

“Sorry Woo,” he quickly says before turning back to his mama urgently. “I want a kiss too,” he says, tapping his head.

Seonghwa gives him a kiss on the forehead, just like he did for Wooyoung, and San lights up like a Christmas tree.

Having received their affection, the two climb off the couch to go help Hongjoong clean up. As promised, Seonghwa makes sure to stay still and not mess up his nails, waiting for them to dry completely. 

While doing so, he thinks of what they can do next with the boys after he gets lunch ready. Cooking breakfast and this whole nail painting thing surprisingly killed a lot of time—or maybe it’s because they are allowed to move at a slower pace today—which is good because that means the day is moving by fast. He should choose something that can take up a good chunk of time so the boys can be occupied longer.

When the boys come back to the living room, an idea pops up in Seonghwa’s head. Yeah, that’s what he’ll do.

“I’m going to get started on lunch now,” he says.

The boys give a look that clearly says they’re worried about his nails. So with a chuckle, Seonghwa checks to make sure his nails are dried. He shows the boys that they’re dried and not going to get ruined. With that confirmation, the two let him get up and go to the kitchen to go make lunch.

Hongjoong keeps them entertained while Seonghwa gets a simple and healthy lunch together for all of them.

After about forty minutes, the four are sitting down and eating together once again. The boys are happily talking about their nails and how they can’t wait to show their hyungs what they’ve done—Seonghwa and Hongjoong listening with smiles. It’s a peaceful and enjoyable lunch.

When they’re all done—and after Seonghwa finishes washing the dishes—he turns to the two boys who are talking Hongjoong’s ear off about something he’s not exactly sure of.

“Boys, how would you like to bake a cake with me today?” He says, saving Hongjoong’s ears.

Wooyoung and San stop in the middle of their conversation and light up instantly.

“Really?! We get to bake a cake?” Wooyoung asks eagerly.

Seonghwa nods, causing their smiles to widen even more.

“Hyung! We’re going to bake a cake with eomma!” San happily shouts to Hongjoong, wanting the elder to share in their excitement with them.

“That’s great Sannie! I’m sure it’s going to come out amazing,” Hongjoong responds warmly. The affection that these two have for Seonghwa is admittedly extremely cute.

The boys are so excited at the idea of baking a cake with their eomma, they’re practically bouncing in their spots.

“Alright boys, let’s clean our hands and then gather our ingredients,” he says.

The boys latch on to him and follow him to go clean their hands. They cheerfully wash their hands, making sure they're nice and clean so they can get baking. 

When they’re done, they go get their ingredients and items.

Seonghwa decides that they should make a basic yellow cake and then do all of the extra stuff with frosting and toppings if the boys want to make it look pretty. It’ll be simple and has the best chance of coming out good for the boys.

He preheats the oven before turning back to his boys. 

“Okay, so we’ll need sugar, vanilla, milk, eggs, flour, butter, baking powder, and salt,” Seonghwa lists for them, the two nodding as they listen intently. “Sannie, can you get the milk and can you get the butter, Youngie?” He asks of them.

The two don’t even give a reply, immediately rushing over to get what they were asked. They work together to open the fridge while Seonghwa goes to grab the shelf ingredients along with what else they’ll need like a bowl, measuring cups, and so on and so forth. He keeps an eye on them though, making sure no one or nothing is on the verge of falling.

The boys succeed in getting what they were asked, Wooyoung walking back with the bars of butter and San walking back with the carton of milk—thankfully not open as of yet so no chance of spilling. They give it to Seonghwa and he puts it on the table for them. He then brings two chairs closer and helps the boys onto them so they can reach the table. When they’re all steady, he goes and grabs the eggs, bringing back their last needed ingredient.

“Alright so first, we have to soften the butter,” Seonghwa says.

After measuring out the right amount of butter and placing it into a big bowl, he grabs a whisk and begins to press down on it, breaking the butter up into pieces and occasionally stirring so as to soften it. The boys watch carefully as he does so, pretty much fascinated with anything the older does. 

“Now we have to gradually add sugar and mix it as we do. Who wants to mix and who wants to pour?” He says.

“Oo oo can I pour?” Wooyoung asks, looking to San.

San nods—he wanted to stir anyway.

So Seonghwa hands the whisk to San and then goes to measure out the right amount of sugar.

“Hongjoong, can you come and help for a moment please?” Seonghwa calls.

Hongjoong comes to the kitchen at the call, ready to help—though he can be as much as a disaster in the kitchen as the two young children depending on who you ask.

“I need you to hold the bowl while San mixes so it doesn’t move too much. If he needs help mixing, you can also do that,” Seonghwa says.

“No problem, that’s easy,” Hongjoong replies.

Seonghwa moves closer to Wooyoung with the cup of sugar. He hands it to the younger but holds his hands so as to make sure nothing drops.

“Ready boys?” He asks.

The two nod eagerly, happy and ready for this.

So with Seonghwa’s permission and help, Wooyoung begins to slowly pour the sugar into the bowl as San does his best to mix it together. Hongjoong helps San out with the mixing—after making sure the bowl isn’t going anywhere of course. 

The two boys have big smiles on their faces as they do their jobs and Seonghwa is glad that he thought of a good activity for them. They just look so precious.

When the sugar is all in, Seonghwa sets down the cup so as to grab the next needed ingredient. He asks Hongjoong to give the sugar-butter mixture a good mix before they continue.

“Now we add vanilla. It smells very sweet,” Seonghwa says, letting the boys catch a whiff of the sweet scent. The boys love it, making happy hums at its scent.

Seonghwa hands the right amount to Wooyoung and lets him pour the vanilla in—Hongjoong mixing it with San again.

All nice and mixed in, now it’s time for the eggs.

Because they don’t want any eggshells in the cake, Seonghwa is in charge of cracking the eggs. He does it so cleanly, San and Wooyoung in awe of how he breaks it so nicely. Hongjoong does the mixing as the boys watch, fascinated by their mama and hyung who seem to work together well and that the mixture is actually starting to look like a liquid batter.

With that all done, it’s time to get to the always messy part—flour.

“We have to sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together now. It’s going to get a bit messy because of the flour, okay?” Seonghwa explains to the two boys.

They nod. This is going to be the fun part.

Seonghwa is about to measure out the flour himself—because he can do it neatly—but he decides it wouldn't hurt to let the boys do it. He’ll just clean it all up later—let the boys have fun for now.

“Alright so here’s what you two are going to do. Woo, you’re going to pour the flour and San, you’ll watch and tell him when to stop. He has to pour to this line, okay?” He explains to them.

They nod, understanding their tasks. So Hongjoong picks up the flour and hands it to him. Seonghwa reminds San of the line they’re supposed to reach and the younger makes sure to put his finger on it so they can have the right amount.

“Okay Youngie, start pouring,” San says.

Wooyoung starts to pour the flour, the white powderish cloud rising as he does. Granted, the flour lands other places than the cup as well, causing the two children to giggle.

A particularly packed together bit of flour falls into the measuring cup, some of it landing on San’s hair.

“Hey!” He says, Wooyoung laughing at the sight of San with white in his hair.

San chuckles and picks up some of the flour on the table. He throws it at Wooyoung, laughing when it hits him right on his forehead.

“Now we match,” he says.

The two boys fall out laughing, throwing flour at each other and making a mess.

Seonghwa is about to stop them—smiling fondly at the two playful children—but then some flour suddenly hits him right in the face. He looks up to see Hongjoong looking away innocently, hand covered with the white powder.

“Oh so that’s how you want to play huh?” He says, picking up some flour.

It becomes an all-out flour war, Hongjoong and San against Seonghwa and Wooyoung. They make the biggest mess—Seonghwa covered the batter so no flour falls into it—laughing and having fun as they do so.

Their messy flour fight comes to an end when Seonghwa and Hongjoong calls it a truce so they can continue to make the cake.

“Cleaning up is going to take forever,” Hongjoong laughs.

“Well you started it. Got my boys all messy now,” Seonghwa chuckles.

Said boys are covered in flour, happy as can be and oblivious to the mess their elders will have to clean up after all of this. Wooyoung continues to pour the flour in like nothing happened, reaching the amount they were originally supposed to meet. San holds up the cup with his bright smile.

“We did it, eomma,” he says.

Seonghwa guffaws at the boys. Them just getting back to business and acting like they didn’t just help cause all of this makes him laugh so much—they truly are something else.

“Good job,” he says behind his hand as he tries to control his laughter.

He grabs the baking powder and salt and does the measuring out himself this time only because they don’t need a lot of either. He puts it with the flour and then goes to grab the sifter.

“Alright, it’s time to sift. I’ll do it and add the milk and then you guys can stir,” he says, the boys nodding in understanding.

Seonghwa begins to sift in the dry ingredients, the boys watching in fascination as the powder falls through much thinner than before. It looks like snow.

Once every last bit is sifted, Seonghwa asks Hongjoong to pass him the milk. The younger does so and Seonghwa pours the right amount into the measuring cup. He pours the milk into the batter and then hands the boys the whisk to stir, reminding them to take turns. 

Since San did most of the mixing before, he lets Wooyoung go first as he holds the bowl. Wooyoung mixes as best as he can—both boys interested in how it’s all coming together. When his arm gets tired, he switches with San—him holding the bowl and San mixing. They do this back and forth until the batter looks smooth enough.

“We’re done, Mama,” they say, proud of their work.

Seonghwa gives them a warm smile in return. “Great job! Can you two help your hyung find the cake pan now so we can pour the batter in?”

They nod and climb off of their chairs to go help. 

Hongjoong actually already knows where it is but it’s to keep them distracted while Seonghwa properly mixes the batter so it can truly be smooth enough. He does it quickly while they search, doing it like an expert and making him look like he belongs on one of those food shows.

When he finishes, the boys “conveniently” find the pan.

“Found it!” Wooyoung says.

“Great! Bring it here so we can get this cake in the oven,” Seonghwa says.

The boys bring it back and climb back up onto their chairs so as to watch.

Seonghwa flours the pan, telling the boys that it’s so nothing sticks when asked why he is doing that. Then he takes the batter and carefully pours it into the pan. He makes sure every last bit of it is in and then smooths it all out by gently tapping the bottom of the pan.

“Now into the oven it goes,” he says.

He makes sure the boys stay a good distance away so as not to get burned. He places the pan into the oven and then sets a timer for when it’s time for him to check to make sure it’s done.

Before anything else, he goes to see what they have for decorating the cake. Hopefully they have ingredients to make even a basic frosting, otherwise someone—Hongjoong—will be running to the store.

He finds heavy cream in the fridge and he decides that maybe they can make a buttercream frosting since they still have more butter left. He just has to see if they have confectioners’ sugar now.

To his great fortune, they do indeed have it meaning Honjoong is saved from having to go out. 

“Alright boys, first let’s clean you two up a bit and then we can make the frosting,” he says.

The two cheer at the idea of making frosting. With that exciting promise in mind, they cooperate when Seonghwa and Hongjoong come over with washcloths, wiping off the flour from their faces and hands.

“Bath time is going to be very interesting,” Seonghwa says with a soft smile.

“It’s a good thing you’re so good at handling it on your own,” Hongjoong teases.

Seonghwa gives him a playful glare. The only ones who respect him in this house are clearly his own children.

“You’re fortunate that I don’t trust you to do a good enough job cleaning or else I would leave you to clean up this whole kitchen on your own,” he responds.

The two children snicker at that.

“Mama says you suck at cleaning, hyung,” Wooyoung says, teasing the older.

“I bet that’s why Mama is always cleaning the room,” San says.

Seonghwa snorts as Hongjoong gapes at the fact that he’s being teased by two five-year-olds.

“Yah, I knew the devil in these two still existed,” Hongjoong says.

The two boys stick out their tongues at him and cling to Seonghwa, looking up at him with sweet eyes. For this one time, Seonghwa pretends that he didn’t see it and that the two are completely innocent.

“I haven’t the slightest clue as to what you mean, my boys are precious angels just like their eomma,” Seonghwa says, batting his eyelashes—the two boys giving their best angelic smiles in agreement.

Hongjoong can’t believe the nonsense he is hearing. They’re really going to try and pull that on him? He knows better than to deny that Seonghwa is an angel though. Said “angel” has locked him out of the bedroom before and he does not want to bunk with one of the others again.

So he settles on indistinctive muttering instead.

“Mhmm, that’s what I thought,” Seonghwa says. Before Hongjoong can even think of a response, Seonghwa turns back to the children. “Let’s make the frosting now,” he says.

The two nod excitedly and Seonghwa goes to grab the needed ingredients, leaving Hongjoong with the two snickering kids. They truly do act like his kids.

Seonghwa comes back with everything and the boys immediately go back to being good kids. Devils, the both of them.

The three happily make their frosting while Hongjoong gets started on the cleaning up process, washing the things they no longer need.

And if Hongjoong was secretly watching and softly laughed when the boys wiped frosting on Seonghwa’s nose then no one needs to know.

He has to admit, though this kid situation is crazy, it’s good that the boys end up thinking Seonghwa is their parent out of all of them. Hongjoong doubts that any of them could do this well with two teammates turned children. Truly he thinks only Yunho would have a chance of not getting the children killed after Seonghwa. Mingi is all over the place and needs to be watched himself sometimes. Jongho, though mature, is not ready to be a parent and would definitely panic if one of them started to cry. Yeosang is another mature one but would certainly stare at the two like what is he supposed to do with them. He himself wouldn’t know what to do honestly so he will gladly count himself out. Yunho is good with kids in the way he always makes them laugh and can keep them entertained so that’s a plus there. They’ve also seen how he is with his little brother so he has some faith that Yunho could pull it off if Seonghwa wasn’t around. He would have a few glitches though. He, along with the others, did lose the boys in the store already—which Seonghwa still does not know about—so there’s reasons for concern.

But fortunately, they chose Seonghwa.

The timer goes off, alerting them that it’s time to see if the cake is done.

Seonghwa opens the oven and pulls the rack out—with an oven mitt of course—and with a toothpick, he checks to see if the cake is ready. When nothing is on the toothpick when he pulls it out, he turns off the oven and takes the cake out.

“It’s done boys, it just has to cool down before we frost it,” he says.

He places it down where the boys can’t touch it while it’s cooling. While it’s cooling, they’ll start to help clean up.

Seonghwa and Hongjoong clean up the big flour mess they created—the two children doing their best to help out—Seonghwa sweeping while Hongjoong cleans the table. Granted Seonghwa is going to go over all of this again later but for now it’s alright.

The four of them finish cleaning in good time, making Seonghwa feel internally a bit more eased now that things are more put together.

After cleaning his and their hands again, he goes to get the cake so they can frost it.

With a practiced ease, Seonghwa easily gets the cake out of the pan and onto a plate for them to frost it. He then finds two frosting spatulas.

“Here you go boys, make it look all pretty,” he says to them and holds out the spatulas to the boys.

They excitedly take the spatulas, so ready to do this.

It becomes like an art class, the two wanting to make the cake look as good as possible. They focus the best they can as they frost so it can be neat—their hyung and mama helping them out now and then. Of course, it becomes a bit messy around them again—and on them—but that’s fine with them.

It’s San who remembers seeing fruits in the fridge and asks if they can use those to decorate the cake. Seonghwa agrees and that’s how they end up having a bunch of berries and grapes pretty much all over the top of the cake.

Finally, their cake is all done.

“Wow, it looks so pretty guys! You did amazing,” Hongjoong says.

Wooyoung and San beam at the compliment, so happy that they made a cake.

“Come on, stand next to it and we’ll take a picture of you with the beautiful cake you made,” Seonghwa says.

“But you and hyung have to be in the picture as well!” Wooyoung says.

Ah, they really are so sweet sometimes.

“Alright then, we’ll take three photos then—one of you two alone, one with you and your eomma, and one with all of us. Does that sound fair?” Hongjoong says.

They nod eagerly—they like that idea a lot!

So the two pose next to their cake, both showing wide grins as Seonghwa and Hongjoong take their photo—photos on Seonghwa’s part because they are just too cute.

He then puts down his phone and joins the boys, wrapping his arms around them and smiling for the camera. Hongjoong takes a few for Seonghwa’s—and teasing—sake, making sure they come out well.

Finally, Hongjoong joins the trio for their group photo. Seonghwa, having the longest arms, is the one who takes the photo for them all—all of them posing and smiling for the picture with the cake as the centerpiece.

“Such cute pictures,” Seonghwa coos, looking at the ones on his phone. He tells Hongjoong to make sure he sends the ones with him and the boys, wanting to have those as well.

Seonghwa covers the cake—the boys want to eat it with all of them there (which makes Seonghwa’s heart melt)—finishing up their baking activity.

“Alright boys, time to wash up and then you two need to take a nap,” Seonghwa says.

The two boys make sounds of complaint at the idea of taking a nap.

“But eomma, we’re not sleepy,” San objects.

But Seonghwa knows better than to believe that.

“Mhm, we’ll see about that. Come on now, we need to clean all of that flour and sugar off of you,” he says, gesturing for them to get walking.

They cooperate and go along to get what they need for a bath.

With all the needed items gathered, Seonghwa takes the boys to the bathroom to get them all cleaned up. He gets the water to the perfect temperature and then helps get the two out of their dirty clothes.

Into the bathtub they go.

Midway through it all, Seonghwa smirks as he sees the two start to drift, their tiredness hitting them.

“Not sleepy, huh?” He says. He knows them too well.

He does his best to finish quickly so he can get his sleepy boys into bed. They’re practically limp noodles by the time he is drying them off and he shakes his head with a soft chuckle. He gets them all dressed and then lifts them up to carry them to his room.

Gently, he sets them down on his bed—both of them pretty much already asleep.

“Sleep well you little monsters,” he says, placing a kiss on their foreheads.

He goes and grabs clothes for both him and Hongjoong so they can shower and change without waking up the boys. He then turns off the light and leaves the room. He heads back to the living room.

“Here, you can shower first,” he says, throwing Hongjoong the clothes that he grabbed for him.

Hongjoong catches the clothes and thanks him and then heads to the bathroom.

While Hongjoong is showering, Seonghwa cleans up the kitchen—again—making sure it’s actually clean this time. They didn’t do such a bad job the last time so he doesn’t have a lot to go over thankfully.

By the time Hongjoong is out of the bathroom, things are nice and neat once again.

Which means Seonghwa can enjoy a nice hot shower.

“If they wake up for any reason while I’m in the shower, do your best to keep them from sitting by the door,” he says to Hongjoong.

Hongjoong gives him a salute in understanding and off Seonghwa goes to have what will probably be the only time to himself today.

Seonghwa takes a lovely (and long) shower, enjoying every minute of it.

Fortunately, by the time he gets out, the boys are still asleep. All of that excitement and baking really knocked them out.

He settles down on the couch next to Hongjoong.

“The next time someone asks whether we want a five year old or five of them, don’t answer,” Hongjoong says jokingly.

Seonghwa chuckles.

“I’ll keep that in mind. But hey, at least they aren’t at each other’s throats anymore,” he says.

“Oh yes, we finally get a break from their arguing and it comes in the form of them as five-year-olds—a true blessing,” Hongjoong replies with a teasing smirk.

One they _definitely_ were not expecting.

“At this point, I’ll take what I can get. Now hush up and close your eyes again while they’re still asleep. You’re going to be watching them again when it’s time to cook dinner so you better get ready,” Seonghwa says with his own smirk.

Hongjoong groans in response. He does not think he can handle those two on his own again. Not today.

“I’m going to call the others and tell them to bring home food.”

* * *

“Are you sure this is a good idea, hyung?”

The guys look at the two children holding onto Seonghwa’s hands. Not a rare sight in the slightest but considering where they are going, it raises some concern.

Today, the group is going to a special marketplace so as to get more ingredients for the mixture they need to make to get San and Wooyoung back to normal. While they usually split up—some stay with the children while others go out—Seonghwa decided that they all should go this time, kids included. They aren’t too sure about taking the boys to such a busy place—they still have flashbacks to losing them in the store—who knows what can happen.

“I’m sure—it’ll be alright. You know it’s a big area so to save ourselves some time, we should all go. Besides, the boys need to get out and since I’m going, they’ll be okay,” he says.

It’s better than him staying in with them all on his own or some of them having to deal with them and the tantrum they will most likely throw because they feel he’s gone for too long.

“Don’t worry, hyungs, we won’t walk away this time,” San says.

“We promise to stay by your side,” Wooyoung says in agreement, nodding along.

The four freeze and Hongjoong takes a step back when Seonghwa snaps his head down to the two.

“This time? What’s that supposed to mean?” He asks.

The four silently beg the children to keep their mouths shut but unfortunately for them, they always answer their mama’s questions.

“When we went to the mall, the hyungs were talking about something and not paying attention to us so Sannie and I got bored so we went to find more nice things. When we went back though, Yunho hyung told us not to walk away again because it scared them,” Wooyoung explains innocently.

“We also told you to not tell your eomma,” Yeosang mumbles under his breath.

The mumbling stops though when Seonghwa looks up to the four of them with a fire in his eyes.

“I told you one thing. ONE thing and it was to not lose these boys. And what do you do? YOU LOSE THE BOYS!” Seonghwa says, ready to strangle them.

“We didn’t _lose_ them per se, they were perfectly okay and still within the store—please don’t kill us, we won’t do it again,” Yunho says, pleading for their safety, Mingi joining in while Yeosang and Jongho hide behind the giants (aka using them as shields).

They turn to Hongjoong, begging with their eyes to help them. For this time, Hongjoong decides to be kind.

“Hwa, I know you want to kill them for being idiots but we do need them for today. Do you really want to do all that searching and buying on our own? Just take a deep breath and get back at them another time,” Hongjoong says.

Though the statement means that he can kill them another time, the others nod regardless, knowing that Seonghwa will forgive them if time passes by.

Seonghwa listens and takes a deep breath, keeping himself from giving them the screaming of a lifetime. He gives them one last look before turning back to the kids.

“You have to stay with eomma today, alright? You can’t leave my side unless I leave you with one of your hyungs, okay boys?” He says calmly to them

The two nod in understanding. They do not have to be told twice to stay by Seonghwa’s side. Regular age San and Wooyoung? A few reminders would be needed. Five year old San and Wooyoung? They were going to do that before even being told.

“Yes, eomma,” they reply.

He strokes their hair with a smile, the two boys grinning in return.

Seonghwa turns back to the others, the four doing their best to give their own innocent and cute smiles. It doesn’t work but Seonghwa will secretly give them an A for effort.

“Let’s get going. When we get in the car, you hold these boys with your lives, understand?” He says.

Because they don’t have a proper carseat for the little ones, the idea is that two of the others hold them in their laps, seatbelt over them. Seonghwa will be driving and Hongjoong has rightfully earned the passenger seat after saving them so it’s up to the four of them to make sure the boys are safe.

“With our lives, got it,” Mingi says, the others agreeing before they get a talking to about car safety.

So with that, the eight of them get going.

In the car, Wooyoung sits on Yeosang’s lap and San sits on Mingi’s lap—which means Yunho and Jongho have the kids on the ride back. They all get buckled in—Seonghwa double-checking in the mirror before pulling off.

It’s a two hour drive to their destination. Yeosang keeps Wooyoung entertained with his phone while San is having a very in-depth conversation with Mingi and Jongho about his favorite show and why it is the best show ever. Of course, eventually, the two get bored of that so they switch—San watching said show that he spent all of his breath talking about and Wooyoung talking to Yeosang, still his favorite hyung.

Finally, they get to the marketplace.

“Alright, we’re here. Everyone, climb out,” Hongjoong says.

They all get out of the car, the two boys immediately going to Seonghwa’s side. They all stretch their limbs—that was a long drive—before getting into work mode.

“Okay so here’s what we’ll do: Yunho and Seonghwa go to get the most expensive/rarest items because no one ever gives you two issues. The rest of us will pair up and grab the other stuff,” Hongjoong says.

It’s true, not many people give Seonghwa and Yunho issues. They’re one of the nicest duos you could ever meet, how could you be a jerk to them? Sure, a few people have been rude pricks to them before but it is not something that happens often. If any of them can get some prices down lower, it’s those two.

“Alright, we’ll meet up at the entrance when we’re done. Everyone keep their phone on ring,” Seonghwa says.

They all nod and with that, off they go into the hecticness that is the marketplace—Yunho and Seonghwa (plus children) going one way, Hongjoong and Jongho going another, and Mingi and Yeosang heading in another.

Yunho and Seonghwa—plus the two children—make their way around, heading to their first stall. They make a few pit stops in between, the boys spotting something they find cool every so often. They tell the two children that they can’t buy anything as of yet though because they have to spend the money on the things they came for but promise the two if they have more to spend afterward then they will definitely get something. The boys don’t complain, satisfied at just seeing all of the cool things.

They finally get to their first stall, instantly spotting the item they need. And its price tag.

“When my mother told me that children are expensive, she really meant it,” Yunho says, picking up the item. They’re about to spend a lot to get their reckless two back to normal.

“Tell me about it,” Seonghwa says, thinking back to how much he’s already spent on the boys.

San and Wooyoung, both currently attached to Seonghwa’s legs, look up at the item in Yunho’s hand.

“Hyung, aren’t you going to buy it?” Wooyoung asks, wondering why they’re just staring at it.

“I’m thinking about it. It kinda cost a lot of money,” Yunho replies.

It costs a lot of money? Well, San thinks he knows how to help with that.

Not stepping away too far from his eomma, San waves down the stall owner who just finished talking to someone.

“Excuse me Ms. Owner,” San says.

The woman looks down at the call and a soft smile comes to her face as she sees the little boy bow politely.

“How may I help you, young man?” She asks.

San points to the item in Yunho’s hand and speaks before Seonghwa can ask the five-year-old what he is doing.

“My hyung really needs to buy that but it costs a lot and if he spends a lot that means me and Youngie can’t get anything going home. Can we get it for less please?” He says.

A horrified look crosses Seonghwa’s face and he quickly scoops up the little boy.

“Sannie, you can’t ask her that,” he lightly scolds.

But fortunately, and to his surprise, the owner chuckles at the cute display.

“He’s so adorable. How old is he?” She says.

Seonghwa gives his shy/awkward smile, still in disbelief that San actually did that.

“He and his brother are both five. I’m sorry for his forwardness—they saw a few things they liked and are determined to get them,” Seonghwa replies, gesturing to Wooyoung who has reattached himself to his leg.

Kids really do take things and run with it sometimes, huh?

“It’s quite alright—I absolutely adore children. Well Sannie, I think I can give your hyung a special price, just for you,” she says, making a booping motion to him in the air.

San lights up at that.

“Really? Thank you, Ms. Owner, you’re very nice,” he says, bowing again while in Seonghwa’s arms.

Seonghwa and Yunho, on the other hand, are completely shocked at what they just heard. Did they hear that correctly?

But sure enough, the woman turns to Yunho and offers him a price that is significantly less than the original one. 

Yunho pays for it, him and Seonghwa thanking her profusely—both still in shock but definitely grateful for the price cut. San and Wooyoung say goodbye to her and thank her themselves, gaining a coo from her about how polite they are. Seonghwa and Yunho decide to get going before she changes her mind about that price.

They wait until they are far enough from the stall to speak.

“What just happened?” Yunho asks, looking down at the item in his bag.

“San just got us a deal without us even having to do anything,” Seonghwa responds.

They can’t believe it, that actually worked.

Seonghwa finally snaps out of his stupor and turns to the boys.

“While it had a good result, you can’t do that okay? Some people will find that very offensive. You have to leave the buying to your hyung and I,” Seonghwa says.

Because—even though the boys would technically be the disrespectful ones—if someone dared to get rude with these two, Seonghwa and Yunho _will_ have someone’s head. So, for the sake of others, it’s best not to do anything to push their luck.

“Okay, eomma,” they reply. They’ll listen—though they are still happy that that actually worked and got their hyung what he wanted for less.

The two elders decide to continue on their way, moving to the next needed stall.

The other stalls go pleasantly well. With Seonghwa’s charm, Yunho’s personableness, and San and Wooyoung’s (unintentionally this time) cute and innocent faces, they are able to get what they need for reasonable prices. Bargaining is a skill and the two elders definitely have it—along with cute kids to break down the walls a bit more. Along the way, since everything is going so well and the kids are behaving greatly, Seonghwa buys the boys something earlier than stated, making the two extremely happy. It definitely contributes to the boys behaving even more, so happy to have a new item.

Finally, after so many stops, they reach the last stall on their list.

“Alright boys, this is our last stall and then we go back to meet up with the others,” Seonghwa tells the two holding his hands.

The boys cheer. That means they’re doing good. Only one more thing to go!

The four approach the stall, Yunho and Seonghwa scanning to find what they are looking for.

Seonghwa spots it first and his heart nearly stops.

“225,690 won?!” He exclaims in disbelief.

There is no way this small container is that much money.

Yunho looks to see what the elder is talking about and sure enough, that is the price tag tied to it.

“Oh this lady has to be out of her mind,” Yunho mumbles, looking over to the middle-aged woman who looks like she can’t stand to be here.

“There’s no way we can pay that much for that—or anywhere near it for that matter. I truly hope that’s just a starting point and she is expecting people to bargain it down like most vendors do,” Seonghwa says, picking up the container.

With a deep breath, he puts on his politest smile and walks over to the woman.

“Good afternoon. I would like to buy thi—”

“That’ll be 225,690 won,” she replies boredly, cutting him off.

Seonghwa tries not to show his surprise—and displeasure—at suddenly being cut off. That was quite rude but he’ll ignore that.

“I see. That’s quite a lot for something this small though, is there a way we could lower it down a bit? I’m willing to pay the value of this ingredient,” he says respectfully.

She gives him a dead look, clearly not caring about whatever he has to say.

“The value of it is 225,690 won,” she says.

Seonghwa tries not to let her rudeness get to him though she is obviously not a people person.

“I’m sorry but that isn’t true. Generally speaking, the highest this ever goes for is about ₩112,900. You’re asking me to pay double that for this,” he reasons.

It’s insane that she would even think that someone would pay that much for this. Even if someone didn’t know how much it usually costs, they can still tell that this is extremely overpriced.

Her dead look turns into a light glare though and she turns her nose upward at him slightly.

“Well here it’s ₩225,690. So either you pay me what I say or you put it down and find somewhere else to get it,” she says.

“You are the only stall here that sells this type of thing. I am willing to pay for it but not that much. This is way too high of a price,” he replies.

She snorts in a derisive way, making Seonghwa feel a bit more upset with how unpleasant she is being. 

“Which makes it even rarer so I can raise the price. ₩225,690 or nothing,” she says, giving him a smug smirk.

Seonghwa takes a deep breath and a step back so as to remain his cool. He turns back to Yunho.

“I need a moment,” he mumbles, Yunho completely understanding.

This lady is insufferable, how does she even keep her business going? Does she just rely on the fact that she sells rare things so people will have to buy despite her bad attitude and high prices? That has to be it because it’s not her sparkling personality causing people to come back, that’s for sure.

A few steps away, San and Wooyoung are frowning deeply at what they just watched. That woman is being so mean to their Mama! All their mama is doing is being nice to her and she’s acting mean. They don’t like it at all. She needs to know that that is not okay.

So though they agreed to not get involved anymore, Wooyoung grabs San by the hand and they walk over to the side of the stall where there’s an opening. With Seonghwa still a bit away from the stall, now on his phone trying to see if he can find another stall, and Yunho doing the same, neither notice the two boys.

Wooyoung, being in front, waves down the mean lady.

She looks down at the child, smug smirk turning into a look of disgust. She hates kids.

“Go away, you’re not supposed to be on this side,” she says to him, stepping closer and staring him down.

Wooyoung stands his ground though, giving her the meanest glare he possibly can.

“You’re being mean to our eomma,” he says.

The woman snorts in response.

“That kid is going to grow up to be a genius alright,” she mutters to herself. If he thinks that guy is his mother then they must not be a bright family.

Though Wooyoung didn’t hear what she mumbled, he did hear the snort and he knows that is not a nice sound.

“You’re a mean lady!” He says, angrily stomping his foot.

She rolls her eyes at the comment.

“A true witch. Now shoo, you brat, I have work to do,” she says.

She does the shooing motion at him, her hand brushing his hair and long fake nails giving him a small scratch on his forehead.

Wooyoung looks at San for a split second—a look of mutual understanding in their eyes—before exaggeratedly falling to his butt with a thump. Tears well up in his eyes before the dam is broken—the young blond letting out a wail at the top of his lungs.

Seonghwa snaps his head around at the sound of the cry and rushes back to the stall. Wooyoung gets off of the ground and runs to his eomma, rushing into his arms as he cries a river.

“What happened?” He asks, picking Wooyoung up and trying to soothe him.

Said child lets out a louder sob, gathering people’s attention.

“The mean woman pushed him,” San says loudly, pointing to the lady.

She turns her head at that, no longer snarky and amused.

“What? No I didn’t. The kid is a liar. I didn’t even touch the boy,” she says.

“Uh-uh! We were over there looking at the things and she said to Woo ‘shoo brat’ and then used her hand to get him away. Look at his head!” San immediately replies, tapping his forehead.

Seonghwa looks at Wooyoung’s forehead, indeed seeing a scratch on his skin. 

Anger quickly flares in him at the sight and he turns to her with an unrestrained glare.

“How dare you touch my child?! Who do you think you are?!” He snaps—his hand gently pushing Wooyoung’s head into the crook of his neck to comfort the boy and for the little one to not see the glare he is giving her.

By now, all eyes are definitely on them and the woman is beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable. She has never been on the receiving end of such a glare nor so many eyes.

“I’m telling you I didn’t push the kid! Your kids are brats and liars!” She exclaims.

Her words only make him more upset though.

“I’ll ask you to refrain from insulting them, especially after you had the nerve to lay your hands on one of them,” he says, words taking a cold bite.

Murmurs begin to travel through the watching crowd, all about how mean of a person she has to be to do such a thing to a child and to speak about them like that. Comments like they won’t ever buy from her and they knew she was a no-good person and the likes travel like fire through the crowd.

Hearing all of the bad comments and knowing that this is bad for business, she looks down at San with a glare.

“Yah, how dare you lie on your elder?! Tell your appa that I didn’t touch your brother right now,” she demands.

San—an actor himself—makes a yelping sound and scurries behind Yunho, who is closest to him, at the harsh tone. His lip begins to wobble and tears start to well up in his eyes.

“Hyung,” he cries to Yunho, the older picking him up.

Seonghwa is now at the end of his patience, absolutely done with this woman.

“That’s enough! Do not talk to my kids that way!” He says, anger laced all in his words as he’s barely keeping himself together.

The murmurs grow even louder, many people shaking their heads at her. Some mothers even pull their own kid closer to them, disgusted by the woman.

The woman sees that the longer they stay here, the more her business gets dragged through the dirt. This is why she hates children—they ruin everything. She has to get them out of here.

She picks up the item that Seonghwa wanted and holds it out to him.

“Here, take this for free and leave. I don’t care anymore, just take your children away from here,” she says.

Before Seonghwa can get on her for basically trying to bribe them to stay quiet, Yunho steps forward and takes the container.

“You have a good day,” he says, short and clipped.

He leads Seonghwa away before the elder can say or do anything else, both of them walking away from the stall and in turn the crowd.

San and Wooyoung peek up, wiping their tears, satisfied when they see the mean woman take a seat with a big huff. Good for her, she shouldn’t have touched him.

When they get a good distance away, Yunho finally speaks up.

“Your sons are devils,” he says.

Seonghwa turns to him, still coming down from his anger from all of that.

“What do you mean?” He asks, confused as to where that suddenly came from.

Yunho shakes his head with a chuckle.

“That woman didn’t push Wooyoung,” he says.

The two five-year-olds freeze slightly at that, now suddenly understanding how their hyungs felt earlier when they told eomma that they lost them in a store.

“What?” Seonghwa says incredulously.

“She didn’t push him. I looked up right when she was telling him to leave. Wooyoung and San were giving her glares because she was talking meanly to you. She told them to leave and then tried to shoo them away. She did scratch him, that part is true, but after that, the boys took the scene and ran with it. I didn’t say anything because she shouldn’t have touched him to begin with but those boys showed her no mercy,” Yunho explains.

Seonghwa pulls Wooyoung back so as to meet his eyes.

“Wooyoung, is that true?” He asks, tone saying that he wants the truth and nothing but.

Wooyoung drops his head in guilt at that and slowly nods. Seonghwa takes a breath in.

“Woo, why would you and San lie like that? That was a really serious thing you said she did,” Seonghwa says.

Wooyoung quickly raises his head, eyes wide and tears in them again as he rushes to their defense.

“But she did touch me! She was so mean to you and when we tried to tell her that it wasn’t nice, she called us mean things and scratched me!” He says.

Seonghwa sighs. Though he doesn’t like the fact that they lied about what she did, he can understand where the two were coming from. And she did lay her hand on him so at least they weren’t fully lying.

“It wasn’t right for you two to lie and say that she pushed you. She could have gotten in very serious trouble for that. I was really upset with her, thinking that she pushed you,” Seonghwa says.

San begins to cry, hiding in Yunho's neck, and Wooyoung’s tears fall uncontrollably—both distraught that they’ve upset their eomma.

“We’re sorry, eomma. We just didn’t like how mean she was,” Wooyoung cries.

Seonghwa clicks his tongue softly and gently wipes away his tears.

“I understand, baby. She was wrong for how she treated us and definitely wrong for scratching you which is why I’m not upset with you two. I just don’t like that you lied and said that she pushed you. You two can’t make claims like that anymore okay? No matter how mean they are to me or to you or to your hyungs, you can’t lie about things like that. Am I clear?” He says, softly but firm.

The two nod in understanding. San reaches out for him and Seonghwa hands Yunho his bag while he takes the child into his arms. He holds both crying boys close to him, letting them get out all of their tears.

“On a related note, I hope she learned her lesson—at least not to put her hands on someone’s child,” Yunho says, patting Seonghwa on the back.

“I hope she learned more than that. I’m still upset with how she talked to them and the scratch on his head. She’s fortunate these two were exaggerating everything,” Seonghwa replies.

Because if she really _did_ push Wooyoung, he would have been going back to that stall with Yeosang and made sure she knew that that was not going to slide.

“I think she’ll try to watch her words more after _that_ hole she dug herself into,” Yunho says. She ruined her own business by speaking like that while everyone is watching—but oh well, what can he say?

The two walk all the way back to the group’s meeting spot since they have everything. Though it was gained by quite the means—unintentionally at that—they fortunately didn’t have to pay an arm and a leg for that last item so that’s good. Hopefully the others got what they needed as well.

When they get back, they see that they are the last ones to arrive.

“Please tell me that the whispers I heard about a mean stall owner pushing a little kid and an upset appa going in full protective mode were not about you four,” Hongjoong says, looking at the two boys hiding in Seonghwa’s neck.

Seonghwa gives a tired and pained smile. “It’s a long story but yeah that was us. We’ll tell you all about it in the car,” he says.

The four look at Seonghwa and Yunho in disbelief. Before they can ask any questions though, Seonghwa starts walking again, heading to the car. It’s about time they went home.

They watch as Seonghwa and Yunho walk off, the children both in Seonghwa’s arms and neither seeming like they’re going to move. Whatever happened must be one hell of a story.

They never can have a normal day, huh?

* * *

They’re running out of time.

The new moon is in three days—not counting today—and the mixture they need to fix all of this takes a full twenty-four hours to make. That leaves them with today and tomorrow only to find the last ingredient that they need. 

Only two days to find what they need or else they’ll never get San and Wooyoung back to normal.

It’s a scary thought that has everyone searching for that last ingredient like crazy. Tension is high and everyone is quietly fearing the worst each time they look at the two children. As cute as Seonghwa finds them at this age, he wants his regular aged demons back. San and Wooyoung don’t deserve to be stuck like this and he’s definitely not ready to take care of two children for the rest of his life so this really needs to be fixed. They’re cutting it terribly close and it is really raising their anxiety.

They’ve been spending all hours of the day looking for this last ingredient. The only time they all don’t have their eyes on a screen is when they’re eating. Other than that though, they are looking high and low for where they can get what they need. Seonghwa is the only one who isn’t searching all day but that’s because he’s watching the boys for the majority of the day. Now more than ever, they need to keep the kids busy so the others can do what they have to.

Even the boys can feel the tension though. They don’t know what it is but they can tell that everyone is on edge for some reason. It’s gotten so obvious that San has given Mingi one of his plushies one time because he “looked like he needed it”. The two have even sat and rubbed out the frown lines in Seonghwa’s face, afraid that their mama’s face will stay like that. Granted though, the action did make them all laugh—even more so when the boys’ faces lit up in pride that they made the others feel better. The boys just want their elders to feel better and help with whatever is bothering them. They don’t realize though that what’s wrong involves them and the more time that passes is the worse it becomes.

They all just need to find this last ingredient so they can have a chance at fixing all of this.

The world decided to be nice to them for once.

“I found it!”

Everyone pops up at the call and turn to see Jongho rushing into the living room, laptop in hand.

“I found the ingredient! I found where we can get it at!” He says, voice in between excitement and urgency.

Hongjoong rushes over to him, quickly scanning the youngest’s screen. When he sees for himself that it is indeed what they are looking for, he laughs aloud in happiness.

“Jongho, you’re amazing!” He says.

Seonghwa gives him a quick shh as a reminder to not wake up the boys but it’s half-hearted because he is excited himself. They finally found it! This is great!

“It’s a hell of a long drive to the place—eight hours both ways. The shop closes at seven and the last thing we need is for them to sell out so we need to get going,” Jongho says.

Eight hours in the car, god that’s going to be hell. But if it’s to get that ingredient, they’ll do it in a heartbeat.

“What are you going to do, hyung?” Yunho asks Seonghwa, referring to the kids.

This is obviously a trip that will take more than a day so the question now is will Seonghwa and most likely someone else be left alone with two children all of that time or will they be bringing the five-year-olds along for the long car ride?

“We’ll all go. We’d have to make a few stops in between anyway so it won’t harm our time too much. If you all leave for two days, those boys will be on the edge wondering what’s going on,” Seonghwa replies.

That and no one should have to stay back with them all on their own. Not when they’re already all up the walls in anxiety over this whole situation. Staying home and watching kids while the others may or not get what they need is not exactly good for the nerves.

“Alright so what do you want us to do?” Mingi asks.

It’s 6:47 in the morning before a spontaneous road trip with six people and two kids in one car—they clearly need to get organized.

“You and Hongjoong prepare for the trip. Yunho and Yeosang go pack the boys’ bags for me please. Put clothes, travel items, and whatever toys you think can keep them entertained—especially San’s plushie. If you can’t fit it, just leave it out for me. Jongho, you’ll help me pack snacks. When we’re done, I’ll get the boys ready,” Seonghwa says, already having planned it out and broken down in his mind.

They all nod and immediately get going to do what they have to. 

Yunho and Yeosang head off to go pack the boys’ backpacks, doing their best not to wake the little ones up as of yet. Mingi and Hongjoong go to grab what they’ll (the regular age ones of the group) need for this trip—money especially. Seonghwa and Jongho head to the kitchen to pack the snacks for both the little ones and for them so not as many stops need to be made and fewer complaints can be made (referring more to the children on that one).

In record time, they all get what they needed to do finished—even more surprisingly without waking up the boys. Thank goodness they’re both heavy sleepers.

Finally, Seonghwa goes to get them ready.

He walks into his room, a tender smile touching his face when he sees the two hugging each other in their sleep. They truly are inseparable.

He goes over to the bed and gets down. Gently, he shakes them.

“Youngie, Sannie, Mama needs you to wake up for a bit. I have to get you ready,” he says softly.

The two stir, cracking their eyes open slightly at his voice. They’re both still half asleep but it’s good enough for him.

“Come on, you can sleep in the car. Let’s get you out of your pajamas,” he says.

Carefully but smoothly, he gets the two ready for the day. They wake up slightly more as he’s cleaning them up a bit but he can tell that it’s not for good—they definitely will be falling back to sleep the moment they get the chance to.

With a skill he has only seen from his and other mothers, he somehow picks up both children along with their backpacks and his bag. He barely thinks about it as he leaves the room, just trying not to lose any needed time in the day.

When he gets out to the living room, everyone is ready to go.

“I’ll do the first shift driving,” Hongjoong says.

They’ll be switching drivers throughout so no one person is stuck doing it all. Since the boys are still asleep—or falling back to sleep to be more exact—Seonghwa will be sitting in the back with them for now until he is needed to drive. Jongho has the directions so he’ll be sitting in the passenger seat for most likely the whole ride.

With that, they all get going. It’s time to get what they need.

They file into the car, Hongjoong getting into the driver’s seat and Jongho getting into the passenger’s, directions ready and at hand. Yunho goes straight to the back with Seonghwa and takes Wooyoung from his arms, letting the younger rest on his chest while San settles into Seonghwa. Yeosang and Mingi keep all of the bags in the middle with them in case anyone needs anything at any given point.

All buckled up and ready to go, Hongjoong pulls off.

For the first two hours of the ride, it’s relatively silent—Yunho, Yeosang, and Mingi taking the chance to catch some more hours of sleep themselves, Jongho and Hongjoong quietly talking, and Seonghwa just enjoying the silence as San clings to him like a koala. It’s peaceful and probably the calmest they’ve all been in a bit. It’s needed and appreciated.

By nine-thirty, Wooyoung begins to rouse.

He lifts his little messy blond head up, rubbing his eyes clear. He looks up to see his hyung asleep and is kind enough to not move too much so as not to wake him up. He looks over to his mama who has already noticed him awake—San still sound asleep and clinging.

“Good morning,” Seonghwa says softly.

Wooyoung waves, getting the idea to use his indoor voice so as not to wake anyone up.

“Where are we going, eomma?” He asks, doing his best to stay quiet.

“We have to go get something very important so we’re going on a road trip,” Seonghwa replies.

Wooyoung makes a cute little face in understanding. A road trip sounds like fun.

“Is Sannie getting up soon?” He asks.

Seonghwa looks down to San, gently petting his hair. If it’s one thing he knows, it’s that San can really sleep, no matter the age, especially when he has something to hug. But he should be up soon enough.

“He should be. Just give it a bit, okay?” He responds.

Wooyoung nods in response. With a little shimmy, careful not to bother Yunho too much, he reaches out and grabs hold of San’s free hand. He holds the other’s hand, perfectly content with this until San wakes up.

Seonghwa smiles at the sight of it. Their friendship is so pure at this age. He hopes they remember this when they get back to their real ages so that type of argument that started this mess won’t happen again any time soon.

Fortunately for Wooyoung, San begins to wake up about ten or so minutes later.

San looks down to see Wooyoung holding his hand and he smiles.

“Hi Woo, hi Mama,” he greets.

Wooyoung, excited to see his partner in...everything but crime at this age finally awake.

“Sannie, we’re on a road trip!” Wooyoung excitedly tells him, still minding his voice with a gentle reminding look from his mama.

San pops up in interest at that and peeking out of the window, he sees that they are indeed on the road.

“Where are we going, Mama?” San asks in curious excitement.

Seonghwa chuckles. He has a feeling that that excitement will quickly turn into impatience a few more hours into this ride for both of these boys.

“We have to get something important and it’s reaaaallllyy far so we’re taking a trip there,” Seonghwa says, booping San’s nose.

He turns and ruffles Wooyoung’s already messy hair.

“You boys have to work with us so this can be a good trip, okay? It’ll be long but we’ll have fun. I may also have to go up and drive at one point so you make sure you’re good for your hyungs back here,” he says.

The two nod, promising to be on their best behavior.

From there, Seonghwa softly talks with the two—the three still fast asleep—doing his best to keep them entertained.

Around 10:20, Yunho is the first of the trio to wake up—Wooyoung and San cheerfully greeting him good morning and putting a smile on his face.

With Yunho up, it’s easier for both boys to now look out of the window, giving them a lot more to talk about as they spot all of the sights they find interesting.

By the time it’s eleven, everyone in the car is up and about. Now that everyone is awake, conversation naturally flows throughout the car. Four hours down and four more to go—they can do this.

They do make a stop during their fourth hour on the road, Hongjoong switching off driving with Yunho. Yeosang gets in the back with Seonghwa, allowing Hongjoong to sit in the middle with Mingi. Hongjoong puts in his headphones and easily falls asleep, the others not needing to watch their volume too much because he can’t hear a thing past his music. They just continue on as normal, letting the time pass them by.

As expected, the two young boys become a bit restless in the car around the fifth hour, nearing the sixth. What’s only been minutes feel like hours to them and hours feel like lifetimes. Yeosang and Seonghwa resort to singing songs to keep them distracted—making up words when they forget the rest of the song. It turns into pure nonsense eventually but it keeps the boys entertained so it’s accomplishing its purpose. Hongjoong wakes up to the strangest of songs a bit into their singing session but that’s what makes it all the more amusing, especially when he just sleepily joins in immediately as he’s still waking up. The guys make the most of it all and honestly it’s pretty fun.

Throughout the rest of the journey, they stop about two more times—once to get everyone food and the other for everyone to stretch their legs. Yunho says he can finish the rest of the drive—the stretching break being enough for him—so no one switches with him. With good conversation, random car games, and whatever silliness they can come up with, the ride is enjoyable and doesn’t feel as long as they were kinda dreading.

Finally, at 4:53 in the afternoon—San and Wooyoung wanted to use the exact time—they reach their location.

Yunho parks the car and they all file out like they’ve been in there for years—Mingi and the two kids being the most dramatic of the bunch.

“Let’s hope this goes smoothly,” Hongjoong says, looking to the shop across the street.

“And no one’s kids cause a scene,” Yeosang adds, looking over to Seonghwa and the boys.

Seonghwa makes an offended face, pulling the two closer to him.

“I resent that! My boys are well behaved and only cause a scene when I’m involved,” he says, the two boys nodding their heads emphatically in agreement.

Sure, they were slightly in the wrong with that whole situation with that mean woman who scratched Wooyoung but they had their reasons. In the two weeks and change that he’s been a parent, he has raised these boys well and with manners. He does not have bad kids. Well, bad five-year-old kids. On a regular, he and Hongjoong have a handful of troublesome children but that’s a different story for a different time. 

“You’d think he gave birth to them,” Hongjoong mumbles, causing the others to snicker.

The snickering stops though when Seonghwa’s lips slowly turn upward in a smile that is anything but comforting. It’s a smile that says danger.

“Let’s see if you all are still laughing later on,” he says sweetly.

He takes hold of the boys' hands and walks away, the others behind him now wondering what that could possibly mean. It’s not anything good for them, that’s for sure.

“Hyung? I’m still your favorite right?” Jongho calls out, following behind him, trying to save himself and only himself.

“Yah! You have no loyalty!” Yeosang says going after them.

Yunho, Mingi, and Hongjoong all look at each other.

“I say he makes us bunk with the kids,” Mingi says, trying to guess what Seonghwa will do to get back at them.

“I say he takes them and whoever he likes the most out to get a good dinner while the rest of us are on our own,” Yunho guesses.

“I say he leaves us with the boys tomorrow,” Hongjoong throws in, causing them all to shudder.

Whatever it is, they hope they can talk Seonghwa out of it before then—especially if it’s him leaving them alone with the boys tomorrow. That would not be fun because they all know how those boys get like when Seonghwa is gone for too long.

They make their way after the others and soon the group is once again together, heading into the shop.

The shop is fairly small but it has a warm, family feeling to it, causing them to guess that this is a family-owned business. They are greeted by many different items—pretty uncommon ones too. From just the looks of it, it seems like they could have probably got some of their other stuff from here too if they would have found this place earlier.

“How may I help you boys?” The man at the counter says.

They walk over to him, politely greeting him before carrying on with business.

“We’re looking to buy this,” Hongjoong says, showing the man a photo of what they need.

The man looks down to the two children holding Seonghwa’s hands, his eyes lighting up in understanding.

“Seems like you had a careless run-in with a broken artifact. First time breaking one?” He asks.

They’re a bit surprised that he knows about that and can just tell from looking at them but then again you never know who knows about this stuff. Heck, someone wouldn’t know they deal with artifacts just by looking at them so you really don’t know who has information on this matter.

“Yeah, we’re usually a bit more careful than this,” Seonghwa admits.

Hopefully this will be their first and last time for a long while.

“I see. Well, you’re in luck, I have one more left. It costs quite a bit though—it’s not easy to come by you know—so for you boys, I’ll give you an option. You can either pay the full price or you can trade me something valuable. If you boys are around artifacts enough for this to happen, then surely you have something of interest,” the man says.

The guys turn to each other trying to think if they have anything worth trading. It doesn’t hurt to consider since they have no doubt that the price will be something high. Trading certain items must be how he gets some of his valuable things—looking around the shop once more. When done right it can work well for both parties so really, it’s not a bad idea. If they can save some money by giving him something then why not—especially since they’ll have to get a hotel to sleep in for the night since the children cannot go back and do another eight hours in the car.

San tugs at Seonghwa’s hand and he looks down at the child.

“Do they not have what you want?” He asks in curiosity, wondering why they’re just staring at each other.

Seonghwa bends down to his level.

“He does but we have to give him something valuable to get it—something other than money,” he answers.

The two boys nod as if they understand completely. It’s clear though that something didn’t exactly click because suddenly Wooyoung tilts his head.

“What does valuable mean?” He asks.

Seonghwa chuckles softly at how they nodded but didn’t know what the word meant. They are so cute.

“It means something that’s worth a lot or something special,” he explains.

The boys try to grasp the meaning of the new word, their faces showing their brains processing it all.

“Is Shiber valuable?” San asks, thinking back to his favorite plushie that’s sitting in the car.

It’s something special to him so that counts, right?

“Yes, Shiber is very valuable,” Seonghwa responds, petting San’s hair with a warm smile. “So just like how Shiber is something valuable, we have to give him something special like the things in his shop.”

The boys once again nod but this time they really do understand everything that was said. They have to give something special to get what they want. That makes sense.

“Why don’t you just check your bag? Yeosang hyung said all eommas have everything in their bags. You probably have something in there, right?” Wooyoung suggests.

Seonghwa glances over to Yeosang—who has conveniently looked away for the moment, “unaware” of what is going on—before looking back to the kids.

“I don’t think I would have anything of value in there,” he says.

Yeosang suddenly turns around, an idea in mind.

“Wait actually, before you try to wring my neck for talking about you to your kid behind your back—again—I think he’s actually on to something. All of us stay putting things into your bag for you to carry and forget to take them out. Remember how you found Mingi’s phone in there once? And Hongjoong’s headphones. And Yunho’s wallet. We put a lot of different things in there. I’m sure we can find something,” Yeosang says.

The others nod in agreement. It is true that they all give Seonghwa things to hold on countless occasions. It’s become a thing now that if something is missing, go check with Seonghwa first because they most likely gave it to him or he’s seen it lying around somewhere while cleaning. If anything of value is going to randomly appear, it’s going to come from Seonghwa’s bag.

Seonghwa decides it wouldn’t hurt to check since they really do make him carry everything. So he takes his bag off of his shoulder and sets it down to go looking through it.

On top of the bag is his stuff—items he knows that he put in there. So he moves past those because he knows he won’t find anything. Below it are things for the boys which isn’t a surprise. 

Getting past that though, that’s when he starts reaching items he knows he didn’t put in there.

“Hey, I was wondering where my fabric makers were,” Hongjoong says, looking over Seonghwa’s shoulder and spotting them.

“My bracelet! I was looking for that everywhere,” Jongho says as Seonghwa holds it up to him.

“There’s my cards, I thought I lost those,” Yunho says, taking them from Seonghwa.

Wooyoung and San look on in interest. Their mama really does have everything. Must be magic or something.

“I won’t even ask whose socks these are in here or how it got in here. But I also see some of our smaller equipment like that tracker Joong misplaced a while ago,” Seonghwa says. They’re getting somewhere.

His eye catches on to something at the very bottom of his bag and he goes to pull it up to see what it is.

He takes it out and sees that it’s a sheathed knife.

“Hey, isn’t that the one we got from that creepy store like a few months ago?” Mingi says.

A couple months back when they were returning from a false alarm, it was San and Wooyoung’s idea to stop at this store that seemed less than normal. Of course, Seonghwa and Hongjoong could not stop the six from buying things despite all of them agreeing that the store was something strange. Which one of them got this knife and how it ended up at the bottom of his bag, he doesn’t know—but hey, this might be of use.

He unsheaths it slightly, checking it out. It is pretty well made and it definitely looks like one of a kind—though he secretly believes it’s cursed. Maybe this will work.

He stands back up and turns to the man at the counter.

“Will you be willing to trade it for this?” He asks.

He shows him the knife, unsheathing it again so the older man can examine it properly.

The man looks it over, taking in every little detail about it. The six of them watch on a bit nervously. If that doesn’t work then they’ll probably be coughing up a lot of money because who knows if Seonghwa will be able to find something else in that bag.

“This is very well made—specially crafted, just from the looks of it. Seems durable. Appreciate the carving in it—definitely hand-done,” he says.

He hums in thought, considering it carefully. They’re all crossing their fingers, hoping that all of this praise is good for them. They’ve had their fair share of people getting their hopes up to then throw in a ridiculous price. They don’t want this to be another case though they won’t knock it.

But the world has kindness on them because the man suddenly gives a small smile.

“I think this will do good,” he says.

The guys cheer—San and Wooyoung cheering along just to share in the happiness. That actually worked! Who would have thought them always throwing things in his bags would actually come in handy for once? 

The man goes to get what they came for, leaving them to celebrate.

“I can’t believe that actually worked. That right there is the win of the day,” Hongjoong says.

They all give each other high fives. They pulled that off, yes they did.

“So this means we should totally keep putting stuff in hyung’s bag right?” Mingi says, everyone but Seonghwa nodding in agreement.

And there it is. Seonghwa sighs, not even going to try and say otherwise. It’d do him no good anyway. 

Every day he asks himself when did he sign up for this? And every day, he receives no answer.

The man comes back with their final needed item.

“Here you boys go. I wish you all the best with this,” he says, handing it to Hongjoong.

Hongjoong happily takes it and they all thank him for his help. After so long, they can’t believe they finally got the last thing they need. Now, all they need to do is get back home and they can get started.

They all leave the shop, heading back to the car.

“Celebratory dinner after we find a hotel for the night?” Jongho suggests, knowing full and well what the answer will be.

The response, however, comes from their current two youngest.

“FOOD!” San and Wooyoung cheer as if they’ve been given the best news possible.

They all laugh heartily, Seonghwa scooping up his boys into his arms. He holds them close, a big smile on his face. They giggle, giving him kisses on his cheek, making his smile wider. 

“You know, it’s almost going to be sad to see them go back to teasing you relentlessly,” Yeosang says.

“Almost,” Jongho mutters, hushing up when Yunho nudges him.

If Seonghwa heard the comment, he doesn’t focus on it. Instead, he just looks at the two boys, smile still present as they look up to him with their wide eyes filled with nothing but love for him.

“Yeah, but if it’s one thing I know, they won’t be able to deny that they love me after this. They’re brats but they’re my brats—I’ll survive,” he says fondly.

Yeosang and Jongho make disgusted faces at the sappiness, causing more laughter. They all know that those two don’t mean it in the slightest—another pair that shows love strangely when they choose to. It’s nothing new in this group. In fact, it just makes everything feel one step closer to normalcy, especially after the straight tension and anxiety they went through these past few days. 

Things will be back to normal soon enough.

With that thought, Seonghwa holds the boys closer.

As much as he loves these two, it’s time to get back his real boys.

~~~

“It’s ready!”

Everyone sits up a bit straighter at Yeosang’s call, all on edge and full of nerves.

This is it.

They’re finally going to change San and Wooyoung back.

After a day of making the mixture—and suffering through the agonizing wait of it all—it’s finally ready to use. This is finally the moment where they will say goodbye to absolutely adorable (but still devils) five-year-old San and Wooyoung and welcome back their regular aged group members. It’s been an interesting few couple of weeks filled with a lot of cuteness admittedly but now it’s time to go back to normal.

Thank God.

Yeosang walks into the living room, a cup in one hand filled with the hard made concoction and a small feeding syringe in the other.

“It’s enough for both of them in here,” Yeosang says, handing Seonghwa the items.

On the couch lies the two children, fast asleep from the medicine Seonghwa made them take earlier in preparation for this. Having already said their goodbyes to the well-behaved, sweetheart kids, the others are all ready to get this problem fixed once and for all.

Hongjoong and Yunho gently sit up the boys, holding them up so Seonghwa can have an easier time giving them the liquid.

“God, I hope this works,” Seonghwa mumbles.

He slowly draws up the mixture into the syringe, silently hoping and praying that they did not mess this up. This is their very last chance to solve this problem—and they mean **_last_ **—they can’t afford to make any mistakes.

He puts the cup aside and turns to the boys.

“Here goes nothing,” he says.

Leaning forward, he carefully and slowly pushes the liquid first into Wooyoung’s mouth and then San’s. Fortunately, the two don’t necessarily have to swallow the concoction—they don’t know how it works to be honest, they deal with artifacts not this type of stuff—so he doesn’t have to worry about them choking or anything. He makes sure both get the proper amount, not wanting to leave any room for mistakes.

When the syringe is all empty, he sets it down. Still leaning forward, he gently strokes both of their heads, bruising down their hair as he has done so many times before. 

Now they just wait.

To their great fortune, they do not have to wait long.

They all move back when a light begins to come from the boys, starting from their chests and spreading outward. It progressively gets brighter as the seconds pass by, reminding them all of when this mess first started right after the artifact broke. They all cover their eyes as the light engulfs the entire room.

It only takes a few moments for it to die down.

As if it never existed, the light completely disappears, granting them sight once again. They all turn back to the couch, holding their breath, anxious about what they will see.

Relief has never felt so good in their lives.

Words cannot explain the feelings they have when they see their San and Wooyoung sitting on the couch, leaning on each other still asleep. Regular, twenty-two-year-olds San and Wooyoung.

Yunho and Mingi pull each other into a hug, letting out happy laughs. Jongho falls back into his seat, tension leaving him completely. Yeosang falls into Hongjoong, both of them looking exhausted but relieved, while Seonghwa is thanking every power there could ever be that this worked. Oh it worked. They have their friends back. Thank the powers.

A groggy groan snaps all of them out of their celebration and they all turn to see the two slightly moving on the couch. Their eyes close tighter for a second before the two slowly separate from each other, fully sitting up.

Finally, they open their eyes.

“God that was so weird,” Wooyung groans.

It takes both him and San a second to get used to the fog that’s slowly lifting in their minds. They turn to each other, a silent mutual understanding passing through their eyes as they gather their bearings.

“Let’s never fight like that again,” San says, rubbing his head.

“Never,” Wooyoung agrees.

After what they just went through, they will never let an argument of theirs get that bad ever again.

Seonghwa is the first to move, catching both of their attention. It’s now that they finally notice the others in the room, everything truly settling in.

“Are you two okay?” He asks, concern full and present in his voice.

They nod. Despite the slight fog in their minds and the feeling inside of them that can only be described as weird, they’re okay.

“Yeah, we are,” Wooyoung says, giving him a small but appreciative smile.

“Do you two remember everything that happened?” Seonghwa follows up, looking them over.

Strangely enough, they do. Though they were kids, they remember everything that happened, everything they did—all of it. It feels like they were watching a show or something but they knew that it was them. There’s just no proper way to explain it but they definitely remember what happened.

“We do—it’s like we were there but weren’t, it’s weird. We owe you guys big time,” San says, Wooyoung nodding in agreement. They can’t even begin to express how grateful they are for everything the guys did to help them out. They really are the greatest friends ever.

A small smile touches Seonghwa’s face and he lets out another breath of relief.

“That’s great,” he says, giving them a comforted smile.

It does not last.

As quick as a flash, Seonghwa is pinching both of their ears and pulling them up into a standing position—smile completely gone.

“How dare you two fight with an unstable relic around?! Are you both insane?! Yah, when I’m done with you, you’re going to wish we kept you as kids!” He berates.

With a firm grip, he begins to pull the two to the room, promising hell for their reckless behavior.

“Ah hyung!”

“We’re sorry! We’re sorry!”

The others all turn a blind eye as Seonghwa drags the two away. Their pleas for help fall onto purposely deaf ears—no one is going to get in their eldest’s way in this matter. They see nothing, they hear nothing, it’s none of their business. Those two are getting what’s coming to them.

“We’re sorry!”

“Forgive us!”

“Hyung! Hyung!”

“Hyung!”

**“AH EOMMA!”**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope this was as cute for you as it was for me writing it 😊.
> 
> Feel free to talk to me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/EVXinav)
> 
> Or [Curious Cat](https://curiouscat.me/EvXina)
> 
> Until next time!


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